He came forward and took her hand and led her to a settee. Despite all her protests he could see very plainly that he had scored heavily in his own favour. She was flustered with excitement and pleasure. Like all women, she was captivated by sudden, decisive action and loved the surprising and the dramatic.
They sat side by side, looking at each other, [pg 238] smiling, making unimportant remarks, and then looking at each other again. Ramon felt that she had changed. She was as pretty as ever, and never had she stirred him more strongly. But her appeal seemed more immediate than before; she seemed less remote. The innocence of her wide eyes was a little less noticeable and their flash of recklessness a little more so. It seemed to him that her mouth was larger, which may have been due to the fact that she had rouged it a little too much. She wore a pink decollete with straps over the shoulders one of which kept slipping down and had to be pulled up again.
Ramon was tremulous with a half-acknowledged anticipation, but he held himself strongly in hand. He felt that he had an advantage over her—that he was more at ease and she less so than at any previous meeting—and he meant to keep it.
But she was rapidly regaining her composure, and took refuge in a rather formal manner.
“Are you going to be here long?” she enquired in the conventional tone of mock-interest.
“Just a week or so on business,” he explained, determined not to be outpointed in the game. “I had to come some time this spring, and when I got your note I thought I would come while you are here.”
“But I’ll be here the rest of my life probably. This is where I live. You ought to have come [pg 239] when my husband was here. I’d like to have you meet him. As it is, I can’t see much of you, of course.…”
He refused to be put out by this coldness, but tried to strike a more intimate note.
“Tell me about your marriage,” he asked. “Are you really happy?… Do you like it?”
She looked at the floor gravely.