It was indicative of the state of intimacy into which the two had grown that they did not make polite conversation with each other, but indeed were silent for some little time after Ste. Marie had seated himself. It was he who spoke first. He said—
"You look vaguely classical to-day. I have been trying to guess why and I cannot. Perhaps it's because your—what does one say: frock, dress, gown? because it is cut out square at the throat."
"If you mean by classical, Greek," said she, "it wouldn't be square at the neck at all. It would be pointed—V-shaped. And it would be very different in other ways too. You are not an observing person after all."
"For all that," insisted Ste. Marie, "you look classical. You look like some lady one reads about in Greek poems—Helen or Iphigenia or Medea or somebody."
"Helen had yellow hair, hadn't she?" objected Mlle. O'Hara. "I should think I probably look more like Medea: Medea in Colchis before Jason——" She seemed suddenly to realise that she had hit upon an unfortunate example, for she stopped short in the middle of her sentence, and a wave of colour swept up over her throat and face. For a moment Ste. Marie did not understand, then he gave a low exclamation, for Medea certainly had been an unhappy name. He remembered something that Richard Hartley had said about that lady a long time before.
He made another mistake, for to lessen the moment's embarrassment he gave speech to the first thought which entered his mind. He said—
"Some one once remarked that you looked like the young Juno—before marriage. I expect it's true too."
She turned upon him swiftly.
"Who said that?" she demanded. "Who has ever talked to you about me?"
"I beg your pardon!" he said. "I seem to be singularly stupid this morning. A mild lunacy. You must forgive me, if you can. To tell you what you ask would be to enter upon forbidden ground, and I mustn't do that."