Suddenly touched, Fiorsen answered gently: 

“Yes, little Daphne.”

She looked at him, and another tiny sigh escaped her.

“Why did you treat me like you did?” she said.  “It’s such a pity, because now I can’t feel anything at all.”  And turning, she suddenly passed the back of her hand across her eyes.  Really moved by that, Fiorsen went towards her, but she had turned round again, and putting out her hand to keep him off, stood shaking her head, with half a tear glistening on her eyelashes.

“Please sit down on the divan,” she said.  “Will you smoke?  These are Russians.”  And she took a white box of pink-coloured cigarettes from a little golden birchwood table.  “I have everything Russian and Japanese so far as I can; I think they help more than anything with atmosphere.  I’ve got a balalaika; you can’t play on it, can you?  What a pity!  If only I had a violin!  I should have liked to hear you play again.”  She clasped her hands:  “Do you remember when I danced to you before the fire?”

Fiorsen remembered only too well.  The pink cigarette trembled in his fingers, and he said rather hoarsely: 

“Dance to me now, Daphne!”

She shook her head.

“I don’t trust you a yard.  Nobody would—­would they?”

Fiorsen started up.

“Then why did you ask me here?  What are you playing at, you little—­” At sight of her round, unmoving eyes, he stopped.  She said calmly: 

“I thought you’d like to see that I’d mastered my fate—­that’s all.  But, of course, if you don’t, you needn’t stop.”

Fiorsen sank back on the divan.  A conviction that everything she said was literal had begun slowly to sink into him.  And taking a long pull at that pink cigarette he puffed the smoke out with a laugh.

“What are you laughing at?”

“I was thinking, little Daphne, that you are as great an egoist as I.”

“I want to be.  It’s the only thing, isn’t it?”

Fiorsen laughed again.

“You needn’t worry.  You always were.”

She had seated herself on an Indian stool covered with a bit of Turkish embroidery, and, joining her hands on her lap, answered gravely: 

“No; I think I wasn’t, while I loved you.  But it didn’t pay, did it?”

Fiorsen stared at her.

“It has made a woman of you, Daphne.  Your face is different.  Your mouth is prettier for my kisses—­or the want of them.  All over, you are prettier.”  Pink came up in Daphne Wing’s cheeks.  And, encouraged by that flush, he went on warmly:  “If you loved me now, I should not tire of you.  Oh, you can believe me!  I—­”

She shook her head.

“We won’t talk about love, will we?  Did you have a big triumph in Moscow and St. Petersburg?  It must be wonderful to have really great triumphs!”

Fiorsen answered gloomily: 

“Triumphs?  I made a lot of money.”