“Why?”
“So I am not to know anything about you?”
She faced him a long moment, and, despite all his curiosity, he could not divine what was passing behind her eyes.
“Wonder if I shall ever see into those eyes?” he said, wandering from his question. His gaze rested a moment on the sensitive nostrils and the delicate mouth with its poised upper lip; and, suddenly, he said, as though noticing it for the first time:
“You can be beautiful when you want to—why don’t you?” Then he laughed and said in a lighter tone, “Inga, if I were ten years younger, I’d be madly in love with those eyes of yours.”
“Would that help?” she said, her eyes filling with a sudden compassionate gentleness.
This frank question threw him into a turmoil. He seemed suddenly recalled to himself—to the imminence of some crisis dominating his freedom of decision. He went from her brusquely, turning about the studio with restless, nervous step, snapping his fingers with quick, irritated gesture, until, as she waited, he came as suddenly back and seized her in his big hands.
“Inga, whatever you do, don’t get to caring for me—do you hear?” he said vehemently, with the stricken intensity of his disordered moods. Then each seemed struck with the strangeness and the significance of what they had been saying. He repeated: “Do you hear—do you understand—not that!”
She looked at him, yet across her eyes, as across her soul, the same misty curtain seemed to intervene. Then she shrugged her shoulders, as much as to lay the decision on the lap of fate.
“It will only bring you suffering,” he said roughly, almost angrily.