Aloud, however, she only said, with a little smile:
‘You should never say things straight out like that, Othmar. You should never go beyond a suggestion. The world has spoilt you so greatly that it has let you get blunt. It is a pity. When I talk to people I always feel as Boucher said he felt when he talked with his lady-love. “J’aime tout ce qu’elle va dire; je n’aime rien qu’elle dit.” If we could only always remain at the stage when we are just going to speak!’
Othmar did not reply. His face was very pale; it had a set stern look, as though he exercised great self-repression. He was angered against himself for being there; for having let her lead him thither merely to be made the sport of her subtle and sarcastic intelligence. It seemed to him that if his passion were unwelcome to her his presence should be unwelcome too.
She guessed his thoughts with that rapid intuition which is the gift of such minds as hers.
‘Oh, I am not like that,’ she said, with some unspoken amusement; ‘I am not startled at a confession like yours, as a horse starts at a pistol shot. It seems to me that men are never happy unless they are talking in that kind of way to some woman who does not belong to them. They are so like children! In Petersburg, last year, I saw Sachs crying for a sentinel’s cartouche-box because he could not have it. He had all Giroux’s shop in his own nursery, but that did not do. You are like Sachs. Ought I to ring the bell and dismiss you? Why should I? I do not think so. Only very primitive beings take fright at declarations. Besides, you made me so many in Paris, and then you went to the Mongols. I never knew why you went to the Mongols; why did you go?’
‘Wounded brutes always get away somewhere to be unseen as long as their wound bleeds,’ said Othmar, with some bitterness.
‘How Sachs cried for that cartouche-box!’ she said, as she lit a cigarette. ‘His women scolded him, but I said to them, “Why do you scold him? He is a male creature; therefore he must weep for what he cannot get.” Some children cry for the moon; a moon, or a cartouche-box, or a woman, the principle is the same.’
Othmar rose and approached her. He seemed scarcely to have heard her jest.
‘Nadége, hear me a moment,’ he said, in a low tone, through whose enforced calmness there was the thrill of an intense passion. ‘You are not alarmed at declarations; they are nothing to you, you neither requite nor reject them; they amuse you, that is all. You are used to do just what you please with men; I understand that you despise them so far as you deign to think of them seriously.’
‘Despise, no!’ she said, with a little gesture of depreciation; ‘that is too strong. Why should I despise them for acting according to their natures? I do not desire cartouche-boxes myself, but I did not despise Sachs.’