“I shall call.”
“Of course. That would be mere civility. But I am not sure that you will get in.”
He was never demonstrative in manner, although he often indulged in certain exaggerations of speech. But he could direct a quiet smiling appeal from his juvenile orbs which he had discovered was seldom resisted. He was far too clever to flirt with Margarethe Styr, so upon this occasion he merely looked like a very young man begging indulgence of a goddess. She smiled and shook her head.
“I am not sure. It is the first step that counts, and first steps are too often fatal. I might find myself enjoying the society of my kind again. I want nothing less—the even tenor of my life destroyed. When one has attained a form of happiness it is the quintessence of folly to risk it.”
“But the first step—you have taken it. We have had an adventurous night together and I shall refuse to be ignored.”
“To-morrow it will seem like a dream.”
“To-morrow, but not a week hence,” he retorted with his uncommon sagacity, which fascinated her more than any trait he had yet displayed to her. “And nothing can alter the fact that it is no dream, and that neither of us can forget it. I shall call to-morrow.”
She laughed and they sat down to the omelette that preceded the chickens. Like all singers she had a healthy appetite, and wondered that she had not missed her usual replenishment even after but an hour and a half of work.
“How do you manage it—concentrating all that tragedy in your eyes?” asked Ordham, abruptly. “Is it that you draw your brows together in some peculiar way—I fancy that is it; they are so low and straight. Will you show me?”
“Do you think I am a machine?” The artist arose in her wrath. “Do you fancy that when I am suffering the anguish of Iseult or Brynhildr I put eyebrows on my soul?”