PART I


IMPULSE




CHAPTER I

IN WHICH THE ROMANTIC HERO IS CONSPICUOUS BY HIS ABSENCE


As the light fell on her face Gerty Bridewell awoke, stifled a yawn with
her pillow, and remembered that she had been very unhappy when she went
to bed. That was only six hours ago, and yet she felt now that her
unhappiness and the object of it, which was her husband, were of less
disturbing importance to her than the fact that she must get up and
stand for three minutes under the shower bath in her dressing-room. With
a sigh she pressed the pillow more firmly under her cheek, and lay
looking a little wistfully at her maid, who, having drawn back the
curtains at the window, stood now regarding her with the discreet and
confidential smile which drew from her a protesting frown of irritation.

"Well, I can't get up until I've had my coffee," she said in a voice
which produced an effect of mournful brightness rather than of anger, "I
haven't the strength to put so much as my foot out of bed."

Her eyes followed the woman across the room and through the door, and
then, turning instinctively to the broad mirror above her dressing