“Please sit down on the divan,” she said. “Will you smoke? These are Russians.” And she took a white box of pink-coloured cigarettes from a little golden birchwood table. “I have everything Russian and Japanese so far as I can; I think they help more than anything with atmosphere. I've got a balalaika; you can't play on it, can you? What a pity! If only I had a violin! I SHOULD have liked to hear you play again.” She clasped her hands: “Do you remember when I danced to you before the fire?”
Fiorsen remembered only too well. The pink cigarette trembled in his fingers, and he said rather hoarsely:
“Dance to me now, Daphne!”
She shook her head.
“I don't trust you a yard. Nobody would—would they?”
Fiorsen started up.
“Then why did you ask me here? What are you playing at, you little—” At sight of her round, unmoving eyes, he stopped. She said calmly:
“I thought you'd like to see that I'd mastered my fate—that's all. But, of course, if you don't, you needn't stop.”
Fiorsen sank back on the divan. A conviction that everything she said was literal had begun slowly to sink into him. And taking a long pull at that pink cigarette he puffed the smoke out with a laugh.
“What are you laughing at?”