“You want the place to yourself,” he said, as coolly as he could; and sauntered into the living-room. Where he resumed the evening paper as though impatient to read it. But his eyes watched her closing door; rested there.
Before she reappeared, Hattie waddled into view to announce dinner. Annan, pacing the room, impatient of his own restlessness, turned nervously as Eris opened her door. She wore a thin black gown—nothing to relieve its slim and sombre simplicity except the snowy skin and the cheek’s rose-warmth shadowed by gold-red hair.
She smiled her confidence; invited him with extended hand. He took possession of her cool, bare arm, walked slowly with her to the dining-room, seated her, touched her hair lightly with his cheek.
For all his fluency he found no word to link the liaison—nothing to smooth the slight contact of caress.
She drew his attention to the rose beside his service plate: he leaned toward her; she picked up the bud and drew it through his lapel without embarrassment.
In the girl’s slight smile suddenly Annan found his tongue. And now, as always, his easy flow of speech began to stimulate her to an increasing facility of response.
Hers, too, was now the initiative as often as his; she told him gaily about the closing hours at the studio under Frank Donnell’s directorship; all about the assembling of her own company under Mr. Creevy; about her new camera-man, Emil Shunk; the search for stories; the several continuities still under consideration. She spoke warmly of Albert Smull, and of his partner, Leopold Shill; of their constant generosity to her, and of her determination that they should never regret their belief in her ability to make their investment profitable.
“It seems to me,” she said, “so amazing, so wonderful, that such keen business men should venture to risk so much on a girl they scarcely know, that it frightens me at moments.”
“Don’t worry,” he remarked with a shrug; “it’s a more interesting gamble for them than the stock-market offers these days. They’re having their fun out of it—Shill, Smull & Co.”
“Oh! Do you think it’s quite that?” she asked, flushing.