Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/129

Rh "You are thin!" remarked Miss Ledwidge, as she motioned me over to the dressing-tabie. And as I sat there putting on the white-wash she handed to me I felt for all the world like a leading-woman getting ready for a first night on Broadway. I rice-powdered my arms and shoulders and put little hollows under my eyes and liquid-whitened my face and softened the whole effect down with a blending-brush.

Then I stared at myself in the dresser mirror. I looked like a Bernhardt in the last act of Camille. I was the sickest-looking scarecrow that ever escaped the morgue. And when that little old weasel had picked my bag of bones, I inwardly remarked, he had surely selected something to suit his own ends.

Then I suddenly stopped smiling at myself. For already I saw I was stumbling into barb-wire entanglements.

I looked around just in time to behold Miss Ledwidge go to the door and hand my clothes, about every blessed rag and stitch I'd worn into that house, to somebody waiting for them out in the hall.

I was out of that chair in one jump. But the lady in the blue and white uniform barred my way.

"What are you doing with those clothes of