He came close.  An unmistakably “doctorish” odour accompanied him—­an odour not disagreeable but associated with modern means for securing perfect cleanliness.  He wore his white jacket, fresh from Cynthia’s painstaking hands.  His eyes were very bright, his lips were smiling.

His arms came about her from behind, his head against hers gently forced it back to face the mirror.  In it the two pairs of eyes met again, hazel and black.

“To think that I should see that reflected from my old glass!” whispered Red Pepper Burns.

CHAPTER II

THE WAY TO ATTAIN AN END

Mrs. Redfield Pepper Burns stood in the doorway of her living-room and studied it with a critical eye.  Within the room, on either side, stood her sister Martha, Mrs. James Macauley, and her friend Winifred, Mrs. Arthur Chester.  In precisely these same relative positions were they also her neighbours as to their own homes.  Their husbands were Red Pepper’s best friends, outside those of his own profession.  It was appropriate that they should have stood by her during the period of fitting and furnishing that part of the old house which her husband had termed her “quarters.”

“It’s the loveliest room in this town,” declared Winifred Chester, “and I’m going to have all I can do not to be envious.”

“I doubt if very many people in this little town will think it the loveliest,” said Ellen’s sister.  “Its browns and blues will be too dull for them, and Ellen’s old Turkey carpet too different from their polished floors and ‘antique’ rugs.  By the way, Ellen, how old do you suppose that carpet is, anyhow?”

“It’s been on Aunt Lucy’s floors since before the Civil War.  Isn’t it beautifully faded?—­it furnishes the keynote of the whole room.  Isn’t it fortunate that the room should be so long and low, instead of high and square?  Is it a restful room, girls?  That’s what I’m after.”

“Restful!” Mrs. Chester clasped her hands in a speaking gesture.  “Red will forget every care, the minute he steps into it.  When are you going to show it to him?”

“To-night, when the fire is lighted and evening office-hours are over.  If he hadn’t been so busy it would have been hard to keep him away, but he hasn’t had an hour to spare even for guessing what I’ve been doing.”

“I hope he’ll have an hour to spare, to stay in it with you.  How you both will hate the sound of the office-bell and the telephones!”

“I’m going to try hard not to, but I suppose I shall dread them, in spite of myself,” Ellen owned.

“This great couch, facing the fire, with all these lovely blue silk pillows, is certainly the most comfortable looking thing I ever saw,” sighed Winifred Chester, casting her plump little figure into the davenport’s roomy depths and clasping her hands under her head in an attitude of repose.

“If Red doesn’t send out word that he’s not at home and can’t be found, when a call finds him stretched out here, he’s a stronger character than I think him.”