Tall and broad-shouldered in a fresh white dinner jacket, his face clean-cut, his dark hair slicked back so that the single wave was almost ironed out, Andrew looked distinguished and austere. His comprehensive glance at Karen’s slight figure in the simple pale pink brocade, at her slender arms which showed a slight tan, her bare neck and the lovely pearl-drop earrings, was now almost impersonal. It was as though he were trying to obliterate that other look in the bedroom. He picked up a glass half filled with milk and put it into her hand, offered a small plate on which lay two white capsules.“I went over to Jake Mears for these,” he said. “A mild tranquillizer.”“I’d rather not take them, thank you.”“I didn’t prescribe them, Jake did. I told him you’d been out all day and were probably tired, and that we had to dine at the Residency. He said the two capsules with milk are a temporary remedy for nervous strain. Go on, take them and forget them.”She did, of course, though she knew they were both aware that it would need more than a drug to ease the atmosphere between them.
