"Hullo, Nick!" she said indifferently. "Hullo, Allegro! No, I don't want any breakfast. I'm not hungry to-day." She reached the table, and for the first time seemed to become aware of Max, seated on the opposite side of it.
Her eyes suddenly opened wide. She stood still and faced him. "I want my cigarettes," she said, with slow emphasis.
Olga glanced at him sharply, in apprehension of she knew not what. Max's face, however, expressed no anxiety. He even faintly smiled.
"What! Haven't you got any? I shall be happy to supply you with some," he said, feeling in his pocket for his own case.
She leaned her hands upon the table in a peculiar, crouching attitude that struck Olga as curiously suggestive of an angry animal.
"I don't want yours," she said, in a deep voice that sounded almost like a menace. "I want my own!"
Max looked straight at her for a few seconds without speaking. Then, "I am sorry," he said very deliberately. "But you mustn't smoke that sort any more. They are not good for you."
"And you have dared to take them away?" she said.
He shrugged his shoulders. "I had no choice."
"No choice!" She echoed the words in a voice that vibrated very strangely. "You speak as if—as if—you had a right to confiscate my property."