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 no sound of movement beyond the door, and she switched on the other light again and examined herself in the mirror.

She mused again, examining her frail body in its intimate garment. Then she ran swiftly and silently to a chest of drawers and in a locked drawer she sought feverishly among a delicate neat mass of sheer fabric, coming at last upon an embroidered night dress, neatly folded and unworn and scented faintly. Then, standing where the door, should it be opened, would conceal her for a moment, she slipped the gown over her head and from beneath it she removed the undergarment. Then she took her reckless troubled heart and the fragile and humorless calmness in which it beat, back to the dressing table; and sitting before the mirror she assumed a studied pose, combing and combing out her long, uninteresting hair.

Mark Frost lay at length on the divan, as was his habit, shading his eyes with his arm. At intervals he roused himself to light a fresh cigarette, at each time counting the diminishing few that remained, with static alarm. A clock ticked regularly somewhere in the room. The soft light from the lamp bathed him in a champagne colored and motionless sea He raised a fresh cigarette: his pale, prehensile mouth wrapped about it as though his mouth were a separate organism.

But after a while there were no more cigarettes. And roused temporarily, he remarked his hostess’ prolonged absence. But he lay back again, luxuriating in quiet and the suave surface on which he rested. But before long he raised the empty cigarette package and groaned dismally and rose and prowled quietly about the room, hoping perhaps to find one cigarette some one had forgotten. But there was none.

The couch drew him and he returned to the oasis of light, where he discovered and captured the practically whole cigarette which Miss Jameson had discarded. “Snipe,” he mur-