"Are you hurrying or delaying? I can't quite make out."
But John was by this time enjoying the to him novel situation, and merely chuckled happily in reply to this thrust. When the shoes were off, by a mystifying movement Marien snuggled first one stockinged foot and then the other into the gold embroidered slippers and with a sigh of contentment appeared to float among her pillows, while she contemplated with smiling attention the face of Hampstead. Presently she asked smiling:
"Are you a man or a boy, I wonder?"
Feeling himself drifting farther and farther under the personal spell of this magnetic woman, and entirely willing to be enthralled, John answered her only with his eyes.
"That's the Ursus look," she laughed softly, as if it pleased her.
A silver cigarette case was on a tabaret within reach of her hand.
"Have a cigarette!" she proposed.
John declined, a trifle embarrassed by the proffer. Miss Dounay lighted one and puffed a small halo above her head before she looked across at him again and asked quizzically:
"You do not smoke?"
"And I do not think women should," Hampstead replied, with level eyes.