Daphne Wing smiled faintly.

“I haven’t seen you for a long time, have I?”

“No; I’ve been abroad.  You dance as beautifully as ever.”

“Oh, yes; it hasn’t hurt my dancing.”

With an effort, he looked her in the face.  Was this really the same girl who had clung to him, cloyed him with her kisses, her tears, her appeals for love—­just a little love?  Ah, but she was more desirable, much more desirable than he had remembered!  And he said: 

“Give me a kiss, little Daphne!”

Daphne Wing did not stir; her white teeth rested on her lower lip; she said: 

“Oh, no, thank you!  How is Mrs. Fiorsen?”

Fiorsen turned abruptly.

“There is none.”

“Oh, has she divorced you?”

“No.  Stop talking of her; stop talking, I say!”

Daphne Wing, still motionless in the centre of her little crowded dressing-room said, in a matter-of-fact voice: 

“You are polite, aren’t you?  It’s funny; I can’t tell whether I’m glad to see you.  I had a bad time, you know; and Mrs. Fiorsen was an angel.  Why do you come to see me now?”

Exactly!  Why had he come?  The thought flashed through him:  ‘She’ll help me to forget.’  And he said: 

“I was a great brute to you, Daphne.  I came to make up, if I can.”

“Oh, no; you can’t make up—­thank you!” A shudder ran through her, and she began drawing on her gloves.  “You taught me a lot, you know.  I ought to be quite grateful.  Oh, you’ve grown a little beard!  D’you think that improves you?  It makes you look rather like Mephistopheles, I think.”

Fiorsen stared fixedly at that perfectly shaped face, where a faint, underdone pink mingled with the fairness of the skin.  Was she mocking him?  Impossible!  She looked too matter of fact.

“Where do you live now?” he said.

“I’m on my own, in a studio.  You can come and see it, if you like.”

“With pleasure.”

“Only, you’d better understand.  I’ve had enough of love.”

Fiorsen grinned.

“Even for another?” he said.

Daphne Wing answered calmly: 

“I wish you would treat me like a lady.”

Fiorsen bit his lip, and bowed.

“May I have the pleasure of giving you some tea?”

“Yes, thank you; I’m very hungry.  I don’t eat lunch on matinee-days; I find it better not.  Do you like my Ophelia dance?”

“It’s artificial.”

“Yes, it is artificial—­it’s done with mirrors and wire netting, you know.  But do I give you the illusion of being mad?” Fiorsen nodded.  “I’m so glad.  Shall we go?  I do want my tea.”

She turned round, scrutinized herself in the glass, touched her hat with both hands, revealing, for a second, all the poised beauty of her figure, took a little bag from the back of a chair, and said: 

“I think, if you don’t mind going on, it’s less conspicuous.  I’ll meet you at Ruffel’s—­they have lovely things there.  Au revoir.”