“Naturally not,” she answered, “and I do not class you amongst my acquaintances at all. You interest me, my friend—very much indeed!”
“I am flattered,” he murmured.
“You are not—I wish that you were,” she answered simply. “I can understand why you have succeeded where so many others have failed. You are strong. You have nerves of steel—and very little heart. But now—what are you going to do with your life, now that wealth must even have lost its meaning to you? I should like to know that. Will you tell me?”
“What is there to do?” he asked. “Eat and drink, and juggle a little with the ball of fate.”
“You are not ambitious?”
“Not in the least.”
“Pleasure, for itself, does not attract you. No! I know that it does not. What are you going to do, then?”
“I have no idea,” he answered. “Won’t you direct me?”
“Yes, I will,” she answered, “if you will pay my price.”
He looked at her more intently. He himself had been attaching no particular importance to this conversation, but he was suddenly conscious that it was not so with the woman at his side. Her eyes were shining at him, soft and full and sweet; her beautiful bosom was rising and falling quickly; there had come to her something which even he was forced to recognize, that curious and voluptuous abandonment which a woman rarely permits herself, and can never assume. He was a little bewildered. His speech lost for a moment its cold precision.