"Really!" she murmured.
He came back and sat down in the gilded chair. It was now so dusky in the room that he couldn't see her very plainly.
So he folded his arms and abandoned himself to gloomy patience until the room became very dark. Then he got up, struck a match, and lighted the gas.
"By Jupiter!" he muttered, "I'm hungry."
For nearly five minutes she let the remark go apparently unnoticed. But the complaint he had made is the one general and comprehensive appeal that no woman ever born can altogether ignore. In the depths of her something always responds, however faintly. And in the soul of this young girl it was answering now—the subtle, occult response of woman to the eternal and endless need of man—hunger of one kind or another.
"I'm sorry," she said, so sincerely that the sweetness in her voice startled him.
"Why—why, do you know I believe you really are!" he said in grateful surprise.
"I am a great many things that you have no idea I am," she said, smiling.
"What is one of them?"
"I'm afraid I'm a—a fool."