She looked again into the fire.
"The end of everything is ashes, and so I would wish the fire never to go out. Some day our fires will be out, and we shall be ashes, too. Do you ever think of that, Guy?"
He thought bitterly that his hopes were ashes already, but he strove to infuse cheerfulness into his reply.
"Isn't that rather morbid, Myra?" he said.
She turned towards him again, and laid her hand on the arm of his chair. "No," she answered. "I say to myself, make the most of the fire while it is there, for to ashes it must come at last. That's no morbid doctrine." She laughed joyously, and shot a glance at him beneath her eyelids. "The fire is alight in us both, Guy. The fire of youth and health and strength. Ought we not to make the most of the fire before it burns itself out?"
For half a moment Guy was startled. The glance, the words, the covert invitation of the outstretched arms dazed him. Almost he believed that the invitation was to him. But the thought passed. Myra was laughing again. "You see, I am growing up, Guy," she remarked.
A man brought in coffee and liquors. Myra waited on Guy, bringing him a cigarette and lighting it for him, as he sat in his chair. Then she perched herself on the arm to light her own cigarette from his. As she bent over him a sudden mad impulse to clasp her in his arms seized him. A memory—the memory of Meriel—came before him and the impulse passed, but it left him strangely agitated.
Myra seemed to observe nothing of this emotion. She threw herself at length upon the rug, resting her head on her hand, gazing into the fire. The sinuous lines of her figure were outlined clearly against the whiteness of the rug. She rose suddenly, and without a word snapped off the electric lights and, returning, threw herself down again in the same attitude. She seemed oblivious of his presence. The murmur of the traffic entered through the open window, the firelight flickered. Guy began to feel as if some unknown agency were at work to deprive him of his senses. Myra's words dwelt in his mind. "The fire is alight in us both, Guy. Ought we not to make the most of the fire before it burns itself out?"
There was a murmur of voices in the hall. Guy listened. Perhaps the Commandatore had returned. A door closed sharply. There was no other sound. He realised then that the servants had gone. He was alone with Myra in the flat. It had happened hundreds of times previously, but never had he realised it before. Perhaps it was that the Myra with whom he had dined was so entirely new to him, an utterly different Myra to the sisterly being with whom he had quarrelled and petted when they lived under the same roof. Supposing Hora should not return——
Myra was looking at him. She had turned where she lay and resting on her elbows she was gazing up at him. There was a challenge in her glance.