Page:Dangerous Business (1927).pdf/63

 in his pocket. He had checked his bag at the Grand Central, Probably Lida and he would leave, married, from that station. He had halted near a booth with an idea of phoning his sister or Ralph that he had returned to New York; but what could he say? Likewise, he had considered calling Lida, but she wouldn't be up.

Improbably, she was out of bed now; yet he entered the big building on the west side of the avenue where the doorman spoke his name and the elevator boy did not inquire what floor. Eighth, it was, lofty enough to welcome the sun shining in upon a niveous Parian Psyche forever nude near a window. A cat slept in the sun, an enormous cat mistakable by its size and color for a mottled tiger cub; Lida's cat.

Mrs. Lytle was not in, nor was her husband; Lida was.

"Jay," she called, her voice coming past a door ajar.

"Hello, Lida," he hailed.

"I'm in here."

Jay handed his hat and coat to the manservant who had admitted him and he went to that half open door halting a moment, with a catch of breath, before he pushed it gently. How easily it opened! There was Lida; there she was, looking at him.

She was seated at a table, a tiny breakfast tray of a table, in the sun beside one of her windows where white, black and slashes of scarlet assailed him. The white was her skin. How white she was; her forehead, cheeks, throat and shoulder half bared and her hands below the big sleeves of her boudoir gown. The black was her hair, cut and clipped like a boy's; her brows, neat and jet and narrow; the big pupils of her eyes; and the satin sheen of