Somebody—Jennifer perhaps—must have drawn the curtains and heaped the fire in the little room. The warmth drew out the smell of the chrysanthemums; and their heavy golden heads, massed in a blue jar, held mysterious intensity of life in the firelight. She switched on the reading lamp, and all the colours in the room leapt up dimly, secretly: purple, blue and rose-colour glowed around them, half-lit, half obscured.
‘This is rather seductive,’ he said. He sank on his knees by the fire and held out his hands to the blaze, looking about him with a faint smile. She came and knelt beside him; and his eyes fastened narrowly on her face.
‘It’s like you: seductive,’ he said softly.
‘Oh, Roddy! Seductive. That’s all it is. I see it now. I hate it. Am I nothing more than that?’
‘You.... I don’t know what you are. I can’t make you out. You never behave as I think you probably will.’
‘I’m glad of that.’
‘Why are you glad?’
‘Because I believe you ascribe to me the worst motives,—the most ambiguous. You suspect me—you guard yourself against me.’
‘Ah, you do. But you needn’t. I won’t do you any harm. Unless being—very fond of you can do you harm. But I don’t think I’m a femme fatale.’