“I'm hoping to know that better soon—I merely guess now.”
“They say all women are egoists—and some men.” She breathed her soft inscrutable ripple of laughter. “Let me hasten to confess, and crave a picture of myself.”
“But the subject deserves an artist,” he parried.
“He's afraid,” she murmured to the fire. “He makes and unmakes senators—this Warwick; but he's afraid of a girl.”
James lit a fresh cigarette in smiling silence.
“He has met me once—twice—no, three times,” she meditated aloud. “But he knows what I'm like. He boasts of his divination and when one puts him to the test he repudiates.”
“All I should have claimed is that I know I don't know what you are like.”
“Which is something,” she conceded.
“It's a good deal,” he claimed for himself. “It shows a beginning of understanding. And—given the opportunity—I hope to know more.” He questioned of her eyes how far he might go. “It's the incomprehensible that lures. It piques interest and lends magic. Behind those eyelids a little weary all the subtle hidden meaning of the ages shadows. The gods forbid that I should claim to hold the answer to the eternal mystery of woman.”
“Dear me! I ask for a photograph and he gives me a poem,” she mocked, touching an electric button.