“On what?”
“On those who go, what costumes are worn, and how much beauty and art appear.”
“But the trouble! Does it pay? What return does one get?”
“If all admire, half are envious, some are jealous, and one is devoted—isn’t that enough?” I think I was a fool that night.
“You seem to understand women,” she said, with a puzzling and not quite satisfactory smile. “Yes, all that is something.”
Though I was looking at the sea rather than at her, I saw again that inquiring look in her eyes—such a measuring look as a recruiting sergeant might give a victim of the Queen’s shilling.
After a moment’s pause she continued, I thought, abstractedly: “As what should you go?”
I answered lightly and without premeditation, “As Caius Cassius. Why should you not appear as Portia?”
She lifted her eyebrows at me.
“As Portia?”