The chemist took it in his hand and turned away mechanically
toward the dispensing room. Suddenly he paused, and, looking
back, shook his head.
"For whom is this prescription required?" he asked.
"For my mistress," the man answered. "Her name is there."
"Where is she?"
"Outside; she is waiting for it."
"If she really wants this made up to-night," the chemist
declared, "she must come in and sign the book."
The footman looked across the counter, for a moment, a little
blankly.
"Am I to tell her that?" he inquired. "It's only a sleeping
draught. Her regular chemist makes it up all right."
"That may be," the man behind the counter replied, "but, you see,
I am not her regular chemist. You had better go and tell her
so."
The footman departed upon his errand without a glance at the girl
who was sitting within a few feet of him.
"I am very sorry, madam," he announced to his mistress, "that the
chemist declines to make up the prescription unless you sign the
book."
"Very well, then, I will come," she declared.
The woman, handed from the automobile by her servant, lifted her
white satin skirts in both hands and stepped lightly across the
pavement. Tavernake stood on one side to let her pass. She
seemed to him to be, indeed, a creature of that other world of
which he knew nothing. Her slow, graceful movements, the shimmer
of her skirt, her silk stockings, the flashing of the diamond
buckles upon her shoes, the faint perfume from her clothes, the
soft touch of her ermine as she swept by--all these things were
indeed strange to him.
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