They had tried baths, cures, innumerable infallible
treatments--to no purpose. Finally he had given up all effort, all
hope; he had given her up. And since then it had been difficult to mask
his resentment.
The butler, a white jacket taking the place of the conventional somber
black, poured four cocktails from a silver mixer and placed four dishes
of shaved ice, lemon rosettes and minute pinkish clams before August
Turnbull, Morice and his wife, and Miss Beggs, occupying in solitude a
side of the table. Then he set at Mrs. Turnbull's hand a glass of milk
thinned with limewater and an elaborate platter holding three small
pieces of zwieback.
She could eat practically nothing.
It was the particular character of her state that specially upset
August Turnbull. He was continually affronted by the spectacle of Emmy
seated before him sipping her diluted milk, breaking her dry bread, in
the midst of the rich plenty he provided. Damn it, he admitted, it got
on his nerves!
The sting of the cocktail whipped up his eagerness for the iced tender
clams. His narrowed gaze rested on Emmy; she was actually seven years
older than he, but from her appearance she might be a hundred, a
million. There was nothing but her painfully slow movements to
distinguish her from a mummy.
The plates were again removed and soup brought on, a clear steaming
amber-green turtle, and with it crisp wheat rolls. Morice's wife gave a
sigh of satisfaction at the latter.
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