He felt himself sink in the luxuriously upholstered chair, while she sat at his feet and looked up into his face.
"Now, then, you are king; you are seated on your throne, while I, your slave, am at your feet, ready to obey your will. Is not that the story of man and woman?"
He did not answer He was struggling, struggling and fighting, and yet he did not know against what he was fighting. Besides, he had no heart in the battle. His will-power was gone; his vitality was lowered; he felt as though some powerful narcotic were in his blood, deadening his manhood, dulling all moral purpose. He was intoxicated by the influences of the hour, careless as to what might happen to him, and yet by some strange contradiction he was afraid. The shadow of a great terror rested on him.
And Olga Petrovic seemed to know—to understand.
She started to her feet. "You have never heard me sing, have you? Ah no, of course you have not. And has it not ever been in song and story that the slave of her lord's will discoursed sweet music to him? Is there not some old story about a shepherd boy who charmed away the evil spirits of the king by music?"
She sat at a piano, and began to play soft, dreamy music. Her fingers scarcely touched the keys, and yet the room was filled with peculiar harmonies.
"You understand French, do you not, my friend? Yes; I know you do."
She began to sing. What the words were he never remembered afterwards, but he knew they possessed a strange power over him. They dulled his fears; they charmed his senses; they seemed to open up long vistas of beauty and delight. He seemed to be in a kind of Mohammedan Paradise, where all was sunshine and song.
How long she sung he could not tell; what she said to him he hardly knew. He only knew that he sat in a luxuriously appointed room, while this wonder of womanhood charmed him.
Presently he knew that she was making love to him, and that he was listening with eager ears. Not only did he seem to have no power to resist her—he had no desire to do so. He did not ask whether she was good or evil; he ceased to care what the future might bring forth. And yet he had a kind of feeling that something was wrong, hellish—only it did not matter to him. This woman loved him, while all other love was impossible to him.