"Never?"
"Never, Japonette."
"Why not?"
"Because, for example, in my case I want you to believe me everything I'd like to be. I know what I am. All people know what they are.... Does anybody ever really unmask? ... Could they if they wished to? There would be only another mask beneath.... We can't ever get rid of masks.... I don't care how hard we try, how honestly we try, how intimate two people become, how deeply they may love—there's always a mask, and it grows there; and our own eyes are the slits. Even a mother with her first born in her arms looks down into its eyes in vain—those blue and transparent veils of a secret soul which sits behind them, impenetrable, inviolable."
After a silence she said:
"Silvette was right; you are a poet, Jim.... How dusky it is growing over the river. Silvette is probably superintending dinner preparations. Shall we go down?"
CHAPTER V
DE MOTU PROPRIO
They arrived at Adriutha two days later in a roaring downpour of June rain. A maid conducted Silvette and Diana to their rooms, a valet piloted Edgerton to another wing of the house devoted to bachelors' quarters over the vast billiard room.
At the eastern end of the house Silvette stood beside the window while the maid assigned to them undressed her. Diana, already in her pajamas and sandals, lay flat on the bed, one knee crossed over, swinging her slim, bare foot and looking out at the rain.