The Second Latchkey | Page 3

worse in the large vestibule, where men sat or stood, waiting for
their feminine belongings; and she was the only woman alone. But her
boat was launched on the wild sea. There was no returning.
The rendezvous arranged was in what he had called in his letter "the
foyer."
Annesley went slowly down the steps, trying not to look aimless. She
decided to steer for one of the high-back brocaded chairs which had
little satellite tables. Better settle on one in the middle of the hall.
This would give him a chance to see and recognize her from the
description she had written of the dress she would wear (she had not
mentioned that she'd be spared all trouble in choosing, as it was her
only real evening frock), and to notice that she wore, according to
arrangement, a white rose tucked into the neck of her bodice.
She felt conscious of her hands, and especially of her feet and ankles,
for she had not been able to make Mrs. Ellsworth's dress quite long
enough. Luckily it was the fashion of the moment to wear the skirt
short, and she had painted her old white suede slippers silver.
She believed that she had pretty feet. But oh! what if the darn running
up the heel of the pearl-gray silk stocking should show, or have burst
again into a hole as she jumped out of the omnibus? She could have
laughed hysterically, as the escaping women had laughed, when she
realized that the fear of such a catastrophe was overcoming graver
horrors.
Perhaps it was well to have a counter-irritant.

Though Annesley Grayle was the only manless woman in the foyer, the
people who sat there--with one exception--did not stare. Though she
had five feet eight inches of height, and was graceful despite
self-consciousness, her appearance was distinguished rather than
striking. Yes, "distinguished" was the word for it, decided the one
exception who gazed with particular interest at that tall, slight figure in
gray-sequined chiffon too old-looking for the young face.
He was sitting in a corner against the wall, and had in his hands a copy
of the Sphere, which was so large when held high and wide open that
the reader could hide behind it. He had been in his corner for fifteen or
twenty minutes when Annesley Grayle arrived, glancing over the top of
his paper with a sort of jaunty carelessness every few minutes at the
crowd moving toward the restaurant, picking out some individual, then
dropping his eyes to the Sphere.
For the girl in gray he had a long, appraising look, studying her every
point; but he did the thing so well that, even had she turned her head his
way, she need not have been embarrassed. All she would have seen was
a man's forehead and a rim of smooth black hair showing over the top
of an illustrated paper.
What he saw was a clear profile with a delicate nose slightly tilting
upward in a proud rather than impertinent way; an arch of eyebrow
daintily sketched; a large eye which might be gray or violet; a drooping
mouth with a short upper lip; a really charming chin, and a long white
throat; skin softly pale, like white velvet; thick, ash-blond hair parted in
the middle and worn Madonna fashion--there seemed to be a lot of it in
the coil at the nape of her neck.
The creature looked too simple, too--not dowdy, but too
unsophisticated, to have anything false about her. Figure too thin,
hardly to be called a "figure" at all, but agreeably girlish; and its owner
might be anywhere from twenty to five or six years older. Not beautiful:
just an average, lady-like English girl--or perhaps more of Irish type;
but certainly with possibilities. If she were a princess or a millionairess,
she might be glorified by newspapers as a beauty.

Annesley forced her nervous limbs to slow movement, because she
hoped, or dreaded--anyhow, expected--that one of the dozen or so
unattached men would spring up and say, constrainedly, "Miss Grayle,
I believe?--er--how do you do?" If only he might not be fat or very
bald-headed!
He had not described himself at all. Everything was to depend on her
gray dress and the white rose. That seemed, now one came face to face
with the fear, rather ominous.
But no one sprang up. No one wanted to know if she were Miss Grayle;
and this, although she was ten minutes late.
Her instructions as to what to do at the Savoy were clear. If she were
not met in the foyer, she was to go into the restaurant and ask for a
table reserved for Mr. N. Smith. There she was to sit and wait to be
joined by him. She had never