ey had arranged to eat at a fashionable restaurant on the other side of
the river, and soon after seven he fetched her. Margaret was dressed with
exceeding care. She stood in the middle of the room, waiting for Arthur's
arrival, and surveyed herself in the glass. Susie thought she had never
been more beautiful.

'I think you've grown more pleasing to look upon than you ever were,' she
said. 'I don't know what it is that has come over you of late, but
there's a depth in your eyes that is quite new. It gives you an odd
mysteriousness which is very attractive.'

Knowing Susie's love for Arthur, she wondered whether her friend was not
heartbroken as she compared her own plainness with the radiant beauty
that was before her. Arthur came in, and Margaret did not move. He
stopped at the door to look at her. Their eyes met. His heart beat
quickly, and yet he was seized with awe. His good fortune was too great
to bear, when he thought that this priceless treasure was his. He could
have knelt down and worshipped as though a goddess of old Greece stood
before him. And to him also her eyes had changed. They had acquired a
burning passion which disturbed and yet enchanted him. It seemed that the
lovely girl was changed already into a lovely woman. An enigmatic smile
came to her lips.

'Are you pleased?' she asked.

Arthur came forward and Margaret put her hands on his shoulders.

'You have scent on,' he said.

He was surprised, for she had never used it before. It was a faint,
almost acrid perfume that he did not know. It reminded him vaguely of
those odours which he remembered in his childhood in the East. It was
remote and strange. It gave Margaret a new and troubling charm. There had
ever been something cold in her statuesque beauty, but this touch somehow
curiously emphasized her sex. Arthur's lips twitched, and his gaunt face
grew pale with passion. His emotion was so great that it was nearly pain.
He was puzzled, for her eyes expressed things that he had never seen in
them before.

'Why don't you kiss me?' she said.

She did not see Susie, but knew that a quick look of anguish crossed her
face. Margaret drew Arthur towards her. His hands began to tremble. He
had never ventured to express the passion that consumed him, and when he
kissed her it was with a restraint that was almost brotherly. Now their
lips met. Forgetting that anyone else was in the room, he flung his arms
around Margaret. She had never kissed him in t