'Yes,' she said, with her eyes on the rings of smoke that her crimson lips parted to send upward. 'Sometimes when Stefan does not give me liberty, or Egon does not pay my accounts, I make them both tremble by a threat that I will go on the stage. I should certainly draw all Paris and all Vienna too. But perhaps it is too late; in a few more years I shall have to marry my daughters. Can you realise that? I am sure I cannot. Now it will suit Wanda perfectly to do that, and her daughter is not three years old; she is always so fortunate.'
He listened impatiently.
'If we left Wanda's name alone it might be better. Did you bring me to supper to talk of her?'
'No; she is your Madonna, I know. One must not be sacrilegious, but one cannot always worship. You do not touch the tokayer; it came from the Kaiser; you are always so abstemious—you irritate me.'
She poured out some of the wine, into a jewel-like goblet of Venice, and gave it him and made him drink it. She sat up on her divan and leaned towards him; the breeze from the garden stirred the laces of her gown and made the golden roses nod.
Wine openeth the heart of man,' she cried gaily. 'Open yours and tell me frankly why you refused to go to Russia? We are not in a theatre now.'
'Are we not?' he said, with the smile which she feared as her greatest foe. 'Whether or not, I fear I must refuse to please you; the matter lies between me and—the Emperor.'
She remarked the hesitation which made him pause before the last word.
'Between him and Egon,' she thought; but after all, what was the secret to her except as a means of influence over him. She believed that she had here present subtler and surer methods of influence which could attain their end without coercion.
She ceased to pursue the theme, and grew gentle and winning; she felt that he was on the defensive. He had come weakly enough into the very heart of temptation, but he was on his guard against her sorceries. Lying back amongst her cushions she amused him with that gay and discursive chatter of which she had the secret, and which imperceptibly induced him to relax his vigilance and to feel her charm. There was that about, her which made all scruples seem ridiculous; there was a contagion of levity and mockery in her which awakened in him the cynicism of earlier years, and made him only heed the marvellous force of seduction of which she was mistress.