“Beg her to come up,” he called. The figure mounted with one hand on the bannister, in the slow manner of the old. Near the last step his mind clicked; he was not surprised when in the room the hood fell back to show Mme. Kaja. Face cold as ice, he remained standing. She came across the room in a whirl of skirts, with both hands out.
“My de-ear boy,” she said.
With the hangings at the windows, it was too dim to tell how far her sincerity went. “I am more than honored to have one of the regents—,” he said, and let it hang.
“Oh, you are the most necessary of all,” she said, and frou-froued to the best chair. “I hope you have forgiven me. It was so-o-o necessary; someone had filed an information with the provosts that I was part of the New Day, and it was such a help. Isn’t it to-o bad about the Episcopals not cooperating? But there are so many of the priests on our side.”
She had seated herself where her face was in the shadow.
“Madame, why have you come?” he asked brutally.
There was a silence in the darkening room. Then: “To help you,” said the voice that, though it might no longer sing, had not lost its silver in speech.
“I will make a light.”
She stirred. “Do not. It is better so . . . I know—you are thinking of the Blue Star. Do you imagine that I fear your using it? No.”
He sat quietly (noting with the back of his mind how the dubious nicety had dropped from her voice, and thinking that this was the woman who had been taken into the High Center). Once more she seemed to gather her forces. “Rodvard Bergelin,” she said, “do you know why I am in the High Center?”