"Are you alone here, Lucia?"
"Except, of course, for my maid—Yes."
My heart beat harder. Why? I hardly know, except that the word "alone" has such a charm in it connected with a woman we love.
"Of course," she said, leaning back, "it is a little unconventional my coming here alone; but Mama was not well enough, and I—Victor," she said, with a sudden indrawn breath, "I felt I must come and see you. I told her I felt I should die there if they would not let me come!"
I saw her breast heave as she spoke, her cheek flushed and paled alternately, the azure of her eyes deepened slowly as the pupils widened in them, till there seemed midnight behind the lashes.
I felt a dangerous current stirring in all my blood at her words, a dry spasm seemed in my throat, blocking all speech.
"I thought you must have finished by now, and I came to say—I came to say"—she murmured.
The blood rushed scarlet, staining all the fair skin, across the face before me, and the bright lips fluttered in uncertain hesitation.
I guessed the situation.
She had come to say to me phrases that seemed quite easy, quite simple to her, murmuring them to herself in the silence of an empty studio, and now face to face with me, listening and expectant, they had become difficult, impossible. I leant forward, the blood hot in my own cheek, a dull flame waking in every vein.