Page:Held to Answer (1916).pdf/138

 ing him with a sudden thrill to the realization of her presence.

She stood at the far end of the room, surveying herself in a long mirror. Her figure was draped rather than dressed in a silken, shimmering texture of black, splashed with great red conventional flowers. The garment flowed loosely at neck, sleeves, and waist, and the fabric was corrugated by a succession of narrow, vertical, unstitched pleats, which gave an illusory effect of yielding to every movement of the sinuous body and yet clinging the closer while it yielded. As John gazed, Marien belted this flowing drapery at the waist with a knot of tiny crimson cord, and then released her coils of rich dark hair so that they fell to her hips in a fluttering cascade as silky as the texture of her robe.

When she advanced to him, the shimmering, billowy movements of the gown matched the rhythmic sway of her limbs as completely as the red splashes upon it matched the color of her cheeks. She came laughing softly, and bearing in her hand a pair of tiny red and gold slippers.

A low divan ran along one side of the room, piled high with gay cushions. Near the foot of it was a Roman chair.

"Sit here," said Marien, indicating the chair; and John, as if obeying stage directions, complied, while his hostess sank back luxuriously amid the cushions and by the same movement presented a slim, neatly booted foot upon the edge of the divan, so very near to the big man's hand as to embarrass him. At the same time she held up the slippers to his notice and observed with a nod toward the boot:

"As a mark of special favor."

For a moment John's face reddened, and he looked the awkwardness of his state of mind, his eyes shifting from the boot to Marien's face and back again.