That is, the door had been locked for a long, long time; but presently, to her intense surprise and annoyance, it slowly opened, and a little man appeared in slippered feet.

He was a little man, and plump, and at first glance his face appeared boyish and round and quite guiltless of hair or of any hope of it.

But, as he came into the electric light, the hardness of his features was apparent; he was no boy; a strange idea that he had never been assailed some people.  His face was puffy and pallid and faint blue shadows hinted of closest shaving; and the line from the wing of the nostrils to the nerveless corners of his thin, hard mouth had been deeply bitten by the acid of unrest.

For the remainder he wore pale-rose pajamas under a silk-and-silver kimona, an obi pierced with a jewelled scarf-pin; and he was smoking a cigarette as thin as a straw.

“Well!” said his young wife in astonished displeasure, instinctively tucking her feet—­from which her maid had just removed the shoes—­under her own chamber-robe.

“Send her out a moment,” he said, with a nod of his head toward the maid.  His voice was agreeable and full—­a trifle precise and overcultivated, perhaps.

When the maid retired, Alixe sat up on the lounge, drawing her skirts down over her small stockinged feet.

“What on earth is the matter?” she demanded.

“The matter is,” he said, “that Gerald has just telephoned me from the Stuyvesant that he isn’t coming.”

“Well?”

“No, it isn’t well.  This is some of your meddling.”

“What if it is?” she retorted; but her breath was coming quicker.

“I’ll tell you; you can get up and ring him up and tell him you expect him to-night.”

She shook her head, eyeing him all the while.

“I won’t do it, Jack.  What do you want him for?  He can’t play with the people who play here; he doesn’t know the rudiments of play.  He’s only a boy; his money is so tied up that he has to borrow if he loses very much.  There’s no sport in playing with a boy like that—­”

“So you’ve said before, I believe, but I’m better qualified to judge than you are.  Are you going to call him up?”

“No, I am not.”

He turned paler.  “Get up and go to that telephone!”

“You little whippet,” she said slowly, “I was once a soldier’s wife—­the only decent thing I ever have been.  This bullying ends now—­here, at this instant!  If you’ve any dirty work to do, do it yourself.  I’ve done my share and I’ve finished.”

He was astonished; that was plain enough.  But it was the sudden overwhelming access of fury that weakened him and made him turn, hand outstretched, blindly seeking for a chair.  Rage, even real anger, were emotions he seldom had to reckon with, for he was a very tired and bored and burned-out gentleman, and vivid emotion was not good for his arteries, the doctors told him.