"Oh, but you must!" Her hand was on his arm, as light as a petal. "I want you." He could just see the twinkle of small round teeth as her upper lip lifted... "Can't ... can't." He tried to disengage his voice, as if that too were tangled up in her.
He moved away toward the door. The "Looker-on" lay on the floor between them. So much the better; she would find it when he was gone! She would understand then why he hadn't waited. And no fear of Jim's getting hold of the paper; trust her to make it disappear!
"Why, what's that?" She bent her supple height to pick it up and moved to the lamp, her face alight.
"You darling, you—did you bring me this? What luck! I've been all over the place hunting for a copy—the whole edition's sold out. I had the original photograph somewhere, but couldn't put my hand on it."
She had reached the fatal page; she was spreading it open. Her smile caressed it; her mouth looked like a pink pod bursting on a row of pearly seeds. She turned to Manford almost tenderly. "After you prevented my going to Ardwin's I had to swear to send this to Klawhammer, to show that I really can dance. Tommy telephoned at daylight that Klawhammer was off to Hollywood, and that when I chucked last night they all said it was because I knew I couldn't come up to the scratch." She held out the picture with an air of pride. "Doesn't look much like it, does it? ... Why, what are you staring at? Didn't you know I was going in for the movies? Immobility was never my strong point..." She threw the paper down, and began to undo her furs with a lazy smile, sketching a dance step as she did so. "Why do you look so shocked? If I don't do that I shall run away with Michelangelo. I suppose you know that Amalasuntha's importing him? I can't stick this sort of thing much longer... Besides, we've all got a right to self-expression, haven't we?"
Manford continued to look at her. He hardly heard what she was saying, in the sickness of realizing what she was. Those were the thoughts, the dreams, behind those temples on which the light laid such pearly circles!
He said slowly: "This picture—it's true, then? You've been there?"
"Dawnside? Bless you—where'd you suppose I learnt to dance? Aunt Kitty used to plant me out there whenever she wanted to go off on her own—which was pretty frequently." She had tossed off her hat, slipped out of her furs, and lowered the flounce of the lamp-shade; and there she stood before him in her scant slim dress, her arms, bare to the shoulder, lifted in an amphora-gesture to her little head.
"Oh, children—but I'm bored!" she yawned.