Page:World Without Men (HT osu.32435053364535).pdf/80

Although the Biochemix building was a modern structure in austere, cubic style, E. J.'s office held a dated and faintly antiquated atmosphere. It was, Gorste thought, an anachronism in the ostentatious futurist architecture of the building as a whole, but a comfortable and luxurious anachronism. The furniture was big and heavily upholstered, and the desk, in polished mahogany, had an expensive solidity that toned perfectly with the moulded ceiling and the hanging crystal chandelier. The furnishing and decor were hardly office-like at all. There was a cozy domesticity about the place, suggestive of a small drawing room. The settee, for instance, had no business in any office, and worse still, the tapestry surface bore indentations that suggested frequent use. Only the window was modern, being oblong with immense rectangular panes, but the curtains were heavy and velvety, and they were halfdrawn to occlude any excess of daylight.

Gorste, looking at E. J. in close-up, found himself fascinated, though he would have been hard put to define the exact nature of his fascination, or the specific features of the woman that exerted such undeniable magnetism. She was mature, yet, despite her age, which so far as Gorste knew was in the late forties, (if not in the early fifties), her figure was slim and adequately shaped. Even her face, though bearing the wrinkles of advancing years, possessed an alertness, an innate liveliness, that suggested inherent youthfulness. She had poise. She dressed well in dark, slim-tapered clothes. Her hair was immaculate. The cosmetic on her face was skillfully applied, but not overapplied. She was obviously a woman who could afford to be efficiently and expensively groomed.

It was not without some misgivings that Gorste reported