“Yes. But if Dmitri changes, we don’t.”
He put an end to the conversation by going into the kitchen to draw beer.
But when, later that evening, Dmitri entered the house and looked into their room for a chat before going to bed, they were immediately startled by his appearance and manner.
“Is all well with you?” asked the young Greek, standing in the doorway.
“Yes, indeed,” answered Jacques. “And you?”
“I am so happy,” answered Dmitri, “that I could almost shout with it. I am getting to the heart of the Great Secret at last. I am beginning to prove from my own experience that what I have always preached is true.”
His large, magnetic eyes dropped their gaze first upon Jacques and then upon Madelein: upon her eyes his gaze floated, and then sank into them. He was not looking at her eyes, nor yet beyond them: he was penetrating within them. The woman did not flinch, but greedily drank his gaze.
“What are you doing?” she asked, in a whisper.
“Do you not feel,” he asked, slowly, “that you are not now what you were a minute ago?”
“Dmitri! Dmitri!” exclaimed Jacques; “you must not do that.”