Mrs Duchemin bore the sunlight! Her dark complexion was clear; there was, over the cheekbones, a delicate suffusion of light carmine. Her jawbone was singularly clear–cut, to the pointed chin—like an alabaster, mediaeval saint’s.
She said:
‘Of course you’re Scotch. I’m from Auld Reekie myself.’ Macmaster would have known it. He said he was from the Port of Leith. He could not imagine hiding anything from Mrs Duchemin. Mrs Duchemin said with renewed insistence:
‘Oh, but of course you must see my husband and the pictures. Let me see…We must think…Would breakfast now…?’
Macmaster said that he and his friend were Government servants and up to rising early. He had a great desire to breakfast in that house. She said:
‘At a quarter to ten, then, our car will be at the bottom of your street.
