He bowed. “I shall be delighted,” he murmured; but she left before he had finished.
“She is lovely,” he thought, “but how odd! What is the matter with her?”
CHAPTER XXI.
BACK TO THE PAST.
Hermia gave a little supper after the opera, and, when the last guest had gone, she went up to her room and sank down in a heap before her bedroom fire. As she stared at the coals, the terrified look came back to her eyes and remained there. She had received a shock. And yet Quintard had only uttered a dozen sentences, and these she could not recall. And she had never seen him before. Had not she? She closed her eyes. Once more she was in her little Brooklyn room; that room had been transformed * * * and she was not alone. She opened her eyes and gave a quick glance about her, then plunged her head between her knees and clasped her hands about the back of it. She must conjure up some other setting from that strange, far-away past of hers—one that had never been reproduced in this house. There had been splendid forests in those old domains of hers, forests which harbored neither tigers nor panthers, bulbuls nor lotus-lilies. Only the wind sighed through them, or the stately deer stalked down their dim, cool aisles. Once more she drifted from the present. He was there, that lover of her dreams; she lay in his arms; his lips were at her throat. How long and how faithfully she had loved him! Every apple on the tree of life they had eaten together. And how cavalierly she had dismissed him! how deliberately forgotten him! She had not thought of him for months—until to-night.
She raised her head with abrupt impatience and scowled. What folly! How many men had not she met with black hair and dark-blue eyes and athletic frames? What woman ever really met her ideal? But—there had been something besides physical resemblance of build and color. A certain power had shone through his eyes, a certain magnetism had radiated from him—she shuddered, threw herself back on the rug, and covered her eyes with her hands. To meet him now!
CHAPTER XXII.
QUINTARD IS DISCUSSED.