"Yes. Don't get up. I will pour it out, and give you yours."
She did so, with the smiling grace that had affected Nigel, had even affected Meyer Isaacson. She put up her veil, lifted the gilded case, looked at herself in the mirror steadily, critically, took the powder-puff and deftly used it. She knew instinctively that Baroudi liked to see her do this. When she was satisfied with her appearance she put the case down.
"It is charming," she said, touching it as it lay near her cup.
"It is for you."
"I will take it away this evening."
She wished there was a big diamond, or a big emerald, set in it somewhere. She had had to sell most of her finest jewels when the bad time had come in England.
"I must have a cigarette."
The coffee, the cigarette—they were both delicious. The warmth of the atmosphere was like satin about her body. She heard a little soft sound. An orange had dropped from a branch into the scarlet tangle of the geraniums.
"Why don't you talk to me?" she said to Baroudi.
But she said it with a lazy indifference. Was her purpose beginning to weaken in this morning made for dreaming, in this luxury of isolation with the silent man who always watched her?