Facing her was the agent, the genius, the Man who had snatched her from that existence, who had at his command these delights to bestow.  She loved him, she belonged to him, he was to be her husband—­yet there were moments when the glamour of this oddly tended to dissolve, when an objective vision intruded and she beheld herself, as though removed from the body, lunching with a strange man in a strange place.  And once it crossed her mind—­what would she think of another woman who did this?  What would she think if it were Lise?  She could not then achieve a sense of identity; it was as though she had partaken of some philtre lulling her, inhibiting her power to grasp the fact in its enormity.  And little by little grew on her the realization of what all along she had known, that the spell of these surroundings to which she had surrendered was an expression of the man himself.  He was the source of it.  More and more, as he talked, his eyes troubled and stirred her; the touch of his hand, as he reached across the table and laid it on hers, burned her.  When the waiters had left them alone she could stand the strain no longer, and she rose and strayed about the room, examining the furniture, the curtains, the crystal pendants, faintly pink, that softened and diffused the light; and she paused before the grand piano in the corner.

“I’d like to be able to play!” she said.

“You can learn,” he told her.

“I’m too old!”

He laughed.  And as he sat smoking his eyes followed her ceaselessly.

Above the sofa hung a large print of the Circus Maximus, with crowded tiers mounting toward the sky, and awninged boxes where sat the Vestal Virgins and the Emperor high above a motley, serried group on the sand.  At the mouth of a tunnel a lion stood motionless, menacing, regarding them.  The picture fascinated Janet.

“It’s meant to be Rome, isn’t it?” she asked.

“What?  That?  I guess so.”  He got up and came over to her.  “Sure,” he said.  “I’m not very strong on history, but I read a book once, a novel, which told how those old fellows used to like to see Christians thrown to the lions just as we like to see football games.  I’ll get the book again—­we’ll read it together.”

Janet shivered....  “Here’s another picture,” he said, turning to the other side of the room.  It was, apparently, an engraved copy of a modern portrait, of a woman in evening dress with shapely arms and throat and a small, aristocratic head.  Around her neck was hung a heavy rope of pearls.

“Isn’t she beautiful!” Janet sighed.

“Beautiful!” He led her to the mirror.  “Look!” he said.  “I’ll buy you pearls, Janet, I want to see them gleaming against your skin.  She can’t compare to you.  I’ll—­I’ll drape you with pearls.”