“Haven’t you been aware of it, Palla?” he said, looking her in the eyes.
“Jim!” she protested, “you are disconcerting! You never before have taken such a tone toward me.”
She rose, walked over to the clock, examined it minutely for a few moments. Then she turned, cast a swift, perplexed glance at him, and came slowly back to resume her place on the sofa.
“Men should be very, very careful what they say to me.” As she lifted her eyes he saw them beginning to glimmer again with that irresponsible humour he knew so well.
“Be careful,” she said, her brown gaze gay with warning; “––I’m godless and quite lawless, and I’m a very dangerous companion for any well-behaved and orthodox young man who ventures to tell me that I’m adorable. Why, you might as safely venture to adore Diana of the Ephesians! And you know what she did to her admirers.”
“She was really Aphrodite, wasn’t she?” he said, laughing.
“Aphrodite, Venus, Isis, Lada––and the Ephesian Diana––I’m afraid they all were hussies. But I’m a hussy, too, Jim! If you doubt it, ask any well brought up girl you know and tell her how we met and how we’ve behaved ever since, and what obnoxious ideas I entertain toward all things conventional and orthodox!”
“Palla, are you really serious?––I’m never entirely sure what is under your badinage.”
“Why, of course I am serious. I don’t believe in any of the things that you believe in. I’ve often told you so, though you don’t believe me–––”