"I don't know what kind of girl you are. I never have known. I've never wanted to know. If you told me you were—what is called good, I'd doubt it. If you told me you weren't, I'd want to kill you and myself. They say there's a fatal woman for every man and a fatal man for every woman. I always laughed at the idea—until you. I don't know what to make of myself."
She suddenly laid her finger on her lips. It irritated him, to discover that, as he talked, speaking the things that came from the very depths of his soul, she had been giving him only part of her attention, had been listening for a step on the stairs. He was hearing the ascending step now. He frowned. "Can't you send him away?" he asked.
"I must," said she in a low tone. "It wouldn't do for him to know you were here. He has strict ideas—and is terribly jealous."
A few seconds of silence, then a knock on the other side of the door.
"Who's there?" she called.
"I'm a little early," came in an agreeable, young man's voice. "Aren't you ready?"
"Not nearly," replied she, in a laughing, innocent voice. "You'll have to go away for half an hour."
"I'll wait out here on the steps."
Her eyes were sparkling. A delicate color had mounted to her skin. Norman, watching her jealously, clinched his strong jaws. She said: "No—you must go clear away. I don't want to feel that I'm being hurried. Don't come back until a quarter past four."
"All right. I'm crazy to see you." This in the voice of a lover. She smiled radiantly at Norman, as if she thought he would share in her happiness at these evidences of her being well loved. The unseen young man said: "Exactly a quarter past. What time does your clock say it is now?"