Diary of a Drug Fiend

A Heroin Heroine 65 “ Please let’s forget the past,” smiled Lou, taking my arm. I don’t know why I should have felt embarrassed at explaining that we were married. Feccles rattled off a string of congratulations. “‘ May I introduce Mademoiselle Haidée Lamoureux? ” The girl beside him smiled and bowed. Haidée Lamoureux was a brilliant brunette with a flashing smile and eyes with pupils like pin-points. She was a mass of charming contradictions. The nose and mouth suggested more than a trace of Semitic blood, but the wedge-shaped contour of the face betokened some very opposite strain. Her cheeks were hollow, and crows’ feet marred the corners of her eyes. Dark purple rims suggested sensual indulgence pushed to the point of weariness. Though her hair was luxuriant, . the eyebrows were almost non-existent. She had pencilled fine black arches above them. She was heavily and clumsily painted. She wore a loose and rather daring evening dress of blue with silver sequins, and a yellow sash spotted with black. Over this she had thrown a cloak of black lace garnished with vermilion tassels. Her hands were deathly thin. There was something obscene in the crookedness of her fingers, which were covered with enormous rings of sapphires and diamonds. Her manner was one of vivid languor. It seemed as if she always had to be startled into action, and that the instant the first stimulus had passed she relapsed into her own deep thoughts. Her cordiality was an obvious affectation ; but both Lou and myself, as we shook hands, were aware of a subtle and mysterious sympathy which left behind it a stain of inexpressible evil. I also felt sure that Feccles understood this unspoken communion, and that for some reason or other it pleased him immensely. His manner changed to one of peculiarly insinuating deference, and I felt that he was somehow taking command of the party when he said :—