A short silence ensued. Ricardo's jaws were working ominously under his skin. His eyes glided voluptuously here and there, cruel and dreamy. Heyst checked a sudden movement, reflected for a while, then said:
“You must wait a little.”
“Wait a little! Wait a little! What does he think a fellow is—a graven image?” grumbled Ricardo half audibly.
Heyst went into the bedroom, and shut the door after him with a bang. Coming from the light, he could not see a thing in there at first; yet he received the impression of the girl getting up from the floor. On the less opaque darkness of the shutter-hole, her head detached itself suddenly, very faint, a mere hint of a round, dark shape without a face.
“I am going, Lena. I am going to confront these scoundrels.” He was surprised to feel two arms falling on his shoulders. “I thought that you—” he began.
“Yes, yes!” the girl whispered hastily.
She neither clung to him, nor yet did she try to draw him to her. Her hands grasped his shoulders, and she seemed to him to be staring into his face in the dark. And now he could see something of her face, too—an oval without features—and faintly distinguish her person, in the blackness, a form without definite lines.
“You have a black dress here, haven't you, Lena?” he asked, speaking rapidly, and so low that she could just hear him.
“Yes—an old thing.”
“Very good. Put it on at once.”