"When people listen to music it always reminds me we are descended from fish. God, what dolts! Minds like soft-bodied sea growths. I can actually see them sometimes."
"You always dislike my friends."
She would argue with him, and in his anger his strangeness would go away.
"Your friends?" He seemed pleased at the chance of growing angry. "Allow me to point out to you that the assemblage to-night had the distinction of being my friends. I discovered the collection. I brought them to the house first."
"They think you're wonderful." She would get him angry that way.
"A virtue, I admit. But it doesn't excuse their other stupidities."
They seemed to have nothing to argue about. Anna loosened her hair. The sight of it rolling in glistening bronzes and reds from her head invariably gave her a desire to cover Erik's face in it. With his face buried in the disordered masses of her hair she would feel an exquisite fullness of love.
"You don't think Rachel stupid, do you?"
Dorn felt a relief at the sound of her name. His thought was full of her, but he had been afraid to talk.
"Miss Laskin," he replied, concealing his eagerness for the topic with a drawl, "is partially insane."