Page:The Breath of Scandal (1922).djvu/69

 were; of course he knew some did, but this girl did not.

At his first glance at her, there seemed absolutely nothing about her to suggest any irregularity or abnormality in her code of conduct; she was a decidedly good-looking woman, probably less than thirty, with regular, definite features, with brown eyes and attractive brown hair, which was evidently all her own; and its color was its own, Gregg estimated; and she was without rouge or even lip dye. There was, indeed, no suggestion of the blondining or artificial make-up about her which, in the minds of innocents, marks the jade; there was not even noticeable weakness or pliability of nature or voluptousnessvoluptuousness [sic] of figure. She had a good figure but Gregg would not have immediately commented it, if he were not so consciously valuing her; for she had nothing of the habit of obtruding physical charms. "There is an independent and competent girl," one would have first thought, casually meeting her. She looked like one preferring and accustomed to live by her brain rather than by her body.

She was dressed more than decently—more than modestly, in fact; for she was wearing a brown, woolen gown, high in the neck; a dress of the sort that Marjorie and her friends wore about their own homes in afternoons when nothing in particular was going on. While Gregg was making this survey of her, she was looking over him and now, clenching her hands, "Who are you?" she demanded. "What do you mean by breaking in here?"

"I'm a friend of Mr. Hale's. My name's Mowbry. How is he?"

"How?" she repeated, retreating a little as Gregg boldly advanced. Whether or not she might have