It was not until the next afternoon that Peter was allowed to get up.
His superb constitution had stood, rock-like, against the chill which
the doctor's medicine had helped to throw off. He had done full justice
to a broiled chicken which Nellie Pope had cooked for him; but when,
having put on his clothes, he stood in front of the looking-glass, he
felt as though he had been under a steam-roller and flattened out.
"Good Lord!" he said, when he saw his pale, unshaven face. "Good Lord!"
But he was very happy. He had read and re-read Ranken Townsend's
generous apology. Betty was waiting for him--thank God for that.
And then he began to look round. Was this a nursing home? The
dressing-table, with its tins of powder and a large dilapidated puff,
its red stuff for lips, its shabby little brushes and a comb with
several of its teeth gone, looked as though it belonged to a
woman,--poor and struggling. The door of the closet, which gaped a
little, showed dresses hanging and a pair of very high-heeled boots with
white uppers. He opened a drawer in the dressing-table. It was full of
soiled white gloves, several veils neatly rolled up, and a collection of
small handkerchiefs. A strong, pungent scent rose up from them.
An ugly suspicion crept slowly into his mind. He looked at the bed with
its frilled pillows, at the flower papered bare walls, at the rather
worn blue carpet, at the flimsy wrap hanging limply on a peg on the door
of the bath-room, at the little bed-room slippers tucked away beneath
one of the white, painted chairs----