Maxine did not protest again. With her head up, and a look as if the
three policemen were of no more importance to her than the furniture of
the room, she walked to the mantelpiece and stood leaning her elbow upon
it. Weariness, disgusted indifference, were in her attitude; but I
guessed that she felt herself actually in need of the physical support.
The two gendarmes moved about in noiseless obedience, their faces
expressionless as masks. They did not glance at Maxine, giving
themselves entirely to the task at which they had been set. But their
superior officer did not once take his eyes from the pure profile she
turned scornfully towards him. I knew why he watched her thus, and
thought of a foolish, child's game I used to play twenty years ago, at
little-boy-and-girl parties: the game of "Hide-the-Handkerchief." While
one searched for the treasure, those who knew where it was stood by,
saying: "Now you are warm. Now you are hot--boiling hot. Now you are
cool again. Now you are ice cold." It was as if we were five players at
this game, and Maxine de Renzie's white, deathly smiling face was
expected to proclaim against her will: "Now you are warm.
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