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.