"Sit down."
And, as he remained standing, she took a little electric button attached to a coil that was on the couch, and pressed it. In the hall outside a buzz was heard, and then the soft, sliding step of Kiki.
"Tea?" she said, turning to him with an amused look, the little button pressed against her thin, sharp row of teeth, that were clear and tiny as a child's.
"No, of course not," he said furiously.
"No tea, Kiki," she said, in that same round, musical tone from which she seldom varied. She held the button in her long fingers, caressing her cheek with it, and, looking at him with half-closed eyes, repeated:
"Sit down."
Though the forward movement of Slade had been unconscious and quite devoid of any personal object, he was angrily aware that she had availed herself of his action to introduce a tantalizing defiance which awakened all the savage in him, as he realized the helplessness of his crude strength before the raillery that shone from her eyes.
He drew his chair closer to her, sat down on its edge, one knee forward, his chin in his hand half concealing his face, looking at her with the shrewd cruelty of a prosecuting attorney.
"What's your game?" he said.
"The game itself," she answered, with a little animation in her eyes and a scarcely perceptible, gradual turning of her whole body toward him.