Irene began to lose her usual formality and air of distinction; she spoke quickly and much; she laughed aloud, and, a number of times, the movement of her bosom and arms became irregular, too lively at moments, but they were full of a half dreamy gracefulness. The baron grew silent and looked at her for a while, then, with rapturous eyes, he began:
"How you are changed at this moment. How charmingly you are changed! Such surprises interest one—they irritate. You have the rare gift of causing surprises."
With gleaming eyes he begged her insistently to tell him whether the change which had taken place, the humor into which she had fallen, was spontaneous or artificial, the result of feeling, or of coquetry.
"You are without doubt the product of high training, so it is difficult to know in you that which is nature and that which is art. And such a person in that changed form is problematical—I beg you, I beg you to tell me whether in you this is nature, or art?"
Listening to these words, in which a very insolent idea was contained, she laughed and turned her eyes away. But bending toward her with a smile which might remind one of a satyr, and with a request in his voice, he asked:
"Is this nature? is it art?"
With a sudden resolve she answered:
"It is nature!"
And she wished to equal the boldness of her answer with the boldness of her look, but a flaming blush shot over her face, and the lids covered her eyes, into which shame had gushed forth. Though maiden modesty was a painted pot, this new change, to which Irene had yielded, exercised on the baron a new irritating influence. In the midst of the rustling materials he seized both her hands, his eyes flashed magnetic rays into her flushed face; he drew her delicate form toward him. She tried to twist her hands away, and with a violent effort strove to throw her bust backward, but the fragile baron was very strong at that instant; he pressed her hands in his as in a vice, and whispered into her very face:
"Do not fight against that cry of life which is heard within you—I am a despot—I know how to will—"