Arrayed in a kimono which would have evoked the envy of the empress of Japan, supposing such a gorgeous raiment—peacocks and pine-trees, brilliant greens and olives and blues and purples—fell under the gaze of that lady’s slanting eyes, she sat opposite the Slavonic Jove and smoked her cigarette between sips of coffee. Frequently she smiled. The short powerful hand of the man stroked his beard and he beamed out of his cunning eyes, eyes a trifle too porcine to suggest a keen intellect above them.
“I am like a gorilla,” he said; “but you are like a sleek tigress. I am stronger, more powerful than you; but I am always in fear of your claws. Especially when you smile like that. What mischief are you plotting now?”
She drew in a cloud of smoke, held it in her puffed cheeks as she glided round the table and leaned over his shoulders. She let the smoke drift over his head and down his beard. In that moment he was truly Jovian.
“Would you like me if I were a tame cat?” she purred.
“I have never seen you in that rôle. Perhaps I might. You told me that you would give up everything but the Paris season.”
“I have changed my mind.” She ran one hand through his hair and the other she entangled in his beard. “You’d change your mind, too, if you were a woman.”
“I don’t have to change my mind; you are always doing it for me. But I do not want to go to America next winter.” He drew her down so that he might look into her face. It was something to see.
“Bah!” She released herself and returned to her chair. “When the season is over I want to go to Capri.”
“Capri! Too hot.”
“I want to go.”