"It is my pose," she said calmly.
"Then you are a great actress as well as a great dancer," he declared.
For the first time the plastic calm of her features seemed disturbed. She smiled, but even her smile seemed to him more like some mechanically contrived alteration in the facial expression of a statue than anything natural or spontaneous.
"The prince tells me," she continued, "that you are a stranger in London. Give me your arm. We will walk to a quieter place. In a few moments we are to be disturbed for supper. One eats so often and so much in this country. Why do I say that, though? It is not so bad as in Russia."
They passed across the polished wood floor into a little room with Oriental fittings, where a lamp was swinging from the ceiling, giving out a dim but pleasant light. The place was empty, and the sound of the music and voices seemed to come from a distance. She sank down upon a divan back among the shadows, and motioned John to sit by her side.
"You have come to find out, to understand—is that not so?" she inquired. "What you know of life, the prince tells me, you have learned from books. Now you have come to discover what more than that there is to be learned in the world of men and women."
"Did the prince tell you all this?" John asked.
"He did," she admitted. "He seems much interested in you."
"He has been very kind," John said.
She turned her head slowly and looked at him.