He smiled archly and expectantly at Staretsky.
“I don’t know what you mean!”
“Why, a kiss. You know what a kiss is, my dear sir.”
“I shall consider you out of your mind, if⸺”
“That is my condition.”
Soltyk had come up behind Staretsky.
“What is your condition?” he asked loudly.
Kreisler stepped forward so quickly that he was beside him before Soltyk could move. With one hand coaxingly extended towards his arm, he was saying something, too softly for the others to hear.
He had immobilized everybody by his rapid action. Surprise had shot their heads all one way. They stood, watching and listening, screwed into astonishment as though by deft fingers.
His soft words, too, must have carried sleep. Their insults and their honey clogged up his enemy. A hand had been going up to strike. But at the words it stopped dead. So much new matter for anger had been poured into the ear that it wiped out all the earlier impulse. Action must be again begun right down from the root.