“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 minute without speaking, as though lost in the beauty of her home:  then, pointing to the walls, she said: 

“It took me ages, I did it all myself.  And look at my little Japanese trees; aren’t they dickies?” Six little dark abortions of trees were arranged scrupulously on a lofty window-sill, whence the skylight sloped.  She added suddenly:  “I think Count Rosek would like this room.  There’s something bizarre about it, isn’t there?  I wanted to surround myself with that, you know—­to get the bizarre note into my work.  It’s so important nowadays.  But through there I’ve got a bedroom and a bathroom and a little kitchen with everything to hand, all quite domestic; and hot water always on.  My people are so funny about this room.  They come sometimes, and stand about.  But they can’t get used to the neighbourhood; of course it is sordid, but I think an artist ought to be superior to that.”