But time was flying. It was after three; the headache was still
pounding in her temples, and her eyes did look almost as haggard
and her skin almost as sallow as her grandmother had said. She
took an anti-pyrene powder from a box in her dressing-table, threw
off all her clothes, swathed herself in a long robe of pale-blue
silk. She locked the door into the hall, and went into her
bedroom, closed the door between. She put the powder in water,
drank it, dropped down upon a lounge at the foot of her bed and
covered herself. The satin pillow against her cheek, the coolness
and softness of the silk all along and around her body, were
deliciously soothing. Her blood beat less fiercely, and somber
thoughts drew slowly away into a vague cloud at the horizon of her
mind. Lying there, with senses soothed by luxury and deadened to
pain by the drug, she felt so safe, so shut-in against all
intrusion. In a few hours the struggle, the bitterness would begin
again; but at least here was this interval of repose, of freedom.
Only when she was thus alone did she ever get that most voluptuous
of all sensations--freedom. Freedom and luxury! "I'm afraid I
can't eat my cake and have it, too," she mused drowsily.
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