“May I? Oh, may I really? And will you? Will you really?”
“Antonia, I’m rather taken with this new person. Where did you pick her up?”
“In a boarding-house. Go on appreciating her, while I ’phone up my hostess for this evening and tell her I have toothache.” Antonia ran up the two steps to the door which led to the house; and stood an instant poised on the topmost, surveying Deb and Cliffe with a provocative smile: “It makes me so happy to think that the two beings whom I love most on earth may also grow to love each other....”
She vanished. And Cliffe murmured: “And she doesn’t care a snap of the fingers for either of us.”
“No. More than anyone else I’ve met, Antonia is absolutely sufficient unto herself.”
“Yet one can’t leave her alone. She’s always the indifferent centre of a swarm of nibblers. What’s the attraction, I wonder.”
“Have you ever caressed a crystal or a lump of jade, or an ornament in soapstone, something with a surface perfectly smooth and cool—something hard and cut and clear, without fuss or anything except its own polish and beauty? ... that’s the beauty of Antonia, and her fascination.”
“An exquisite statuette in green bronze, standing high up on the mantelpiece. Psyche with the lamp.”
“Artemis. Psyche is too human—too curious.”