Nina sat down in silence. She did not in the least understand what had brought him there.
"It is getting rather late," she remarked, after a pause. "I am just going to have a cup of tea and then go to bed."
A little tea-tray stood on the table at her elbow. A brass kettle was fizzing cheerily above a spirit stove.
"Do you want a cup?" she asked, with a careless glance upwards.
He had remained standing, looking down at her with an expression that puzzled her slightly. His eyes were heavy, as if they wanted sleep.
"Thank you," he said.
Nina threw off her wraps and sat up to brew the tea. The light from a rose-shaded lamp poured full upon her. She looked superb and she knew it. The knowledge deprived her for once of that secret sense of fear that so brooded at the back of her intercourse with this man. He stood in total silence behind her. She began to wonder what was coming.
Having made tea, she leant back again with her hands behind her head.
"I suppose we must give it two minutes to draw," she remarked, with a smothered yawn. "Isn't it frightfully hot to-night? I believe there is thunder about."
He made no response, and she turned her eyes slowly upon him. She knew he was watching her, but a curious sense of independence possessed her that night. He did not disconcert her.