Fiorsen stretched out his hand and seized hers just where her little
warm pulse was beating very steadily. She looked at it, changed her fork
over, and went on eating with the other hand. Fiorsen drew his hand away
as if he had been stung.

"Ah, you HAVE changed--that is certain!"

"Yes; you wouldn't expect anything else, would you? You see, one doesn't
go through that for nothing. I think I was a dreadful little fool--" She
stopped, with her spoon on its way to her mouth--"and yet--"

"I love you still, little Daphne."

She slowly turned her head toward him, and a faint sigh escaped her.

"Once I would have given a lot to hear that."

And turning her head away again, she picked a large walnut out of her
cake and put it in her mouth.

"Are you coming to see my studio? I've got it rather nice and new. I'm
making twenty-five a week; my next engagement, I'm going to get thirty.
I should like Mrs. Fiorsen to know--Oh, I forgot; you don't like me to
speak of her! Why not? I wish you'd tell me!" Gazing, as the attendant
had, at his furious face, she went on: "I don't know how it is, but I'm
not a bit afraid of you now. I used to be. Oh, how is Count Rosek? Is
he as pale as ever? Aren't you going to have anything more? You've had
hardly anything. D'you know what I should like--a chocolate eclair and a
raspberry ice-cream soda with a slice of tangerine in it."

When she had slowly sucked up that beverage, prodding the slice of
tangerine with her straws, they went out and took a cab. On that journey
to her studio, Fiorsen tried to possess himself of her hand, but,
folding her arms across her chest, she said quietly:

"It's very bad manners to take advantage of cabs." And, withdrawing
sullenly into his corner, he watched her askance. Was she playing with
him? Or had she really ceased to care the snap of a finger? It seemed
incredible. The cab, which had been threading the maze of the Soho
streets, stopped. Daphne Wing alighted, proceeded down a narrow passage
to a green door on the right, and, opening it with a latch-key, paused
to say:

"I like it's being in a little sordid street--it takes away all
amateurishness. It wasn't a studio, of course; it was the back part of a
paper-maker's. Any space conquered for art is something, isn't it?" She
led the way up a few green-carpeted stairs, into a large room with a
skylight, whose walls were covered in Japanese silk the colour of yellow
azaleas. Here she stood for a minut