Jestingly and familiarly she had spoken to him in the language of her German homeland, which seemed more piercingly sweet and melodious in her mouth than in any other’s.
“Where are you going, Eidolon?” she had asked carelessly.
He had answered with a gesture of uncertainty. He evidently thought that his going or coming was indifferent to her.
“It isn’t nice of you to go without asking leave,” she said, and put her hands on his shoulders. “But perhaps it is just as well. You confuse me. I am beginning to think of you, and I don’t want to do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t. Why do you need reasons?”
The dead and swollen face of Denis Lay rose up before them, and they both saw it in the empty air.
After a little he had dared to ask: “When shall we meet again?”
“It depends on you,” she had answered. “Always let me know where you are, so that I can send for you. Of course, it’s nonsense, and I won’t. But it might just happen that in some whim I may want you and none other. Only you must learn——” She stopped and smiled.