"Why do you look around, then?" Elsa said.
"Am I looking around?" Karl asked. "I wasn't aware of it."
But even as he spoke he could not help furtively glancing around to see what Millar and Olga were doing. He remembered the man's declaration in the studio that afternoon and he distrusted and feared him. He was beginning to hate him.
By a sheer effort of will he forced himself to turn to Elsa. He resolved that he would talk to her; that he would make love to her; that he would marry her and banish from his heart those hateful emotions which Millar had aroused. He leaned forward and spoke of love to the girl in low tones, while Elsa, with color coming and going in her face, listened and watched the woman she knew for her rival.
"Our first love usually is our last love—our last love always is the first," Karl said.
"I don't know," Elsa cried demurely. "I have never been in love, although I was disappointed twice," she added gayly.
Karl was beginning to find his task difficult. His attention wandered to Olga.
"Disappointments; well, yes, who has not been disappointed?"
Elsa observed his growing inattention, his efforts to concentrate his thoughts on their talk, his futile love-making, and she turned from him coldly. Meanwhile Millar and Olga were having a conversation in which Olga was being torn on the rack of her jealous emotions.
Millar had brought her into the anteroom to show her Karl making love to Elsa. Every circumstance favored his design. Olga at first was disposed to withdraw when she saw them.