David Markuse looked at her in admiration, and nodded.
“It is said to bring misfortune to its possessors,” Christian almost whispered.
“Do you intend to test yourself, Eidolon, and put it to the proof? Will you challenge the demon to prevail against you? Ah, that is what allured me, too. Its name made me envious. As I held it, it seemed like the navel of Buddha, from which one cannot divert one’s thought, if one has once seen it.”
She noticed that the people about them seemed to make Christian hesitate, so she took his arm, and drew him behind the curtains of a window-niche.
“That it brings misfortune to people is certain,” Christian repeated mechanically. “How can I keep it, Eva, since you desired it?”
“Keep it and break the evil spell,” Eva answered, and laughed. But his seriousness remained unchanged; and she apologized for her laughter by a gesture, as though she were throwing aside the undue lightness of her mood. She watched him silently. In the sharp light reflected from the snow, her eyes were green as malachite. “What are you doing with yourself?” she asked. “Your eyes look lonesome.”
“I have been living rather alone for some time,” answered Christian. His utterances were dry and precise. “Crammon too has left me.”
“Ivan Becker wrote me about you,” Eva said in muffled tones. “I kissed the letter. I carried it in my bosom, and said the words of it over to myself. Is there such a thing as an awakening? Can the soul emerge from the darkness, as a flower does from the bulb? But there you stand in your pride, and do not move. Speak! Our time is short.”
“Why speak at all?”