He had sent his card up with a
penciled note to the effect that he would wait for her in the parlor.
But when he stepped through the double doorway of the ornate room it was to
become aware of a prior occupant. She was reclining on a divan at the end
of the large public room. Neither lying nor sitting, but propped up among a
dozen pillows with head and limbs inert and the long lashes drooped on the
white cheeks, Aline looked the pathetic figure of a child fallen asleep
from sheer exhaustion after a long strain.
Since he was the man he was, unhampered by any too fine sense of what was
fitting, he could no more help approaching than he could help the
passionate pulse of pity that stirred in his heart at sight of her forlorn
weariness.
Her eyes opened to find his grave compassion looking down at her. She
showed no surprise at his presence, though she had not previously known of
it. Nor did she move by even so much as the stir of a limb.
"This is wearing you out," he said, after the long silence in which her
gaze was lost helplessly in his. "You must go home--away from it all.
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