"Your old chair," she said to him, as they entered together.
A fire was blazing merrily on the hearth, for the heat wave which had swept the city had been driven away by the storm, and the night was cold.
"Fires in August," he said, as he entered.
She looked at him strangely.
"There's something comforting to me in the fire," she answered. "Especially now I'm so much alone. I often have one lighted whatever the thermometer says, and sit for hours looking into it."
She knelt down on the snowy fur of the rug, and stretched her arms to the blaze.
Guy was stricken again with a sense of her beauty. Her eyes were half closed. She might have been a priestess offering an oblation to the spurting flames which threw rosy shadows on her face and arms and shoulders.
"I love the fire," she said dreamily. "I think I am almost a fire-worshipper. When the flames spring up, my heart rejoices so that I can sing aloud, and when they die down into a dull red glow, I can dream and dream. But when the fire is out—Guy! Don't you just hate ashes—cold ashes?"
She turned on him suddenly.
He did not know what to reply. He did not know Myra in this mood.