Page:Dale - A Marriage Below Zero.djvu/293

287 lips to my upturned face. The kiss chilled me. It reminded me of the first he had ever given me, and I shuddered slightly. For one moment a great feeling of disappointment came over me; the next brought with it the remembrance of last night, and my anxiety was swept away as by a consuming flame.

I ran lightly down stairs and joined the genial Donaldsons. They were waiting for me in the parlors. When I saw Mrs. Donaldson, I really felt pleased that my husband was absent. She was décolletée in a way that made my cheeks burn. The strip of satin that, for politeness’ sake she called a bodice, was so bewilderingly narrow, that one had to look for it carefully, in order to find it. She was a nice little woman, this Mrs Donaldson. I liked what I knew of her, but I had no desire to know quite as much as her attire revealed.

"How charming you look," she said as I entered the room, and turned my eyes away from her chubby beauty, "and what a bright color you have in your cheeks. One might almost suspect rouge," she added, laughing.