His voice was hard, almost angry, and she despised herself because the fierce sound of it made her suddenly afraid.
"Do you know what a man said to me the other day," she went on with a cool insolence before which he became suddenly quiet. "Whom the gods destroy they first infatuate—with an opera singer."
She delivered the words straight from the shoulder, and as she finished he rose from his chair and stood looking angrily down upon her.
"Did you let me come here for this?" he demanded.
"O Arnold, Arnold!" the gayety rang back to her voice, and she made a charming little face of affected terror. "If you're going to be a bear I'll run away."
She stretched out her hand, and he held it for an instant in his own, while he fell back impatiently into his chair.
"The truth is that I was clean mad about her," he said, "about Madame Alta—but it's over now, and I abominate everything that has ever set foot on the stage."
"Was she really beautiful?" she enquired curiously.
He laughed sharply. "Beautiful! She was flesh—if you mean that."
An angry sigh escaped him, and Gerty lighted a fresh cigarette and gave it to him with a soothing gesture. The nervous movements which were characteristic of him became more frequent, and she found herself wondering that they should increase rather than diminish the impression of virile force. For a while he smoked in silence; then, with his eyes still turned away from her, he asked in a changed voice.
"Tell me about your friend—she interests me."
"She interests you! Laura?"
"There's something in her that I like," he pursued, smiling at her exclamation. "She looks human, natural, real. By Jove, she looks as if she were capable of big emotions—as if, too, you could like her without making love. She's something new."
Gerty's amazement was so sincere that she only stared at him, while her red lips parted slightly in a breathless and perfectly unaffected surprise. Something new! Her wonder faded slowly, and she told herself that now at last she understood. So he was still what he had always been—an impatient seeker after fresh sensations.
"I thought you were too much like Perry to care about her," she said.
His amused glance made the remark appear suddenly ridiculous. "I'm different from Perry in one thing at least," he retorted. "You didn't marry me."
"Well, I dare say it's a good thing you never gave me the chance," she tossed back lightly. "I don't let Perry rave, you know, even over Laura. Not that I'm unduly jealous, but that I'm easily bored."
"I can't imagine you jealous," he commented, keeping as usual close to the intimate intention.
"And of Perry! I should hope not!" Her gesture was one of amused indifference. "Jealousy is the darling virtue of the savage, and I may not be a saint, but at least I'm civilized. Give me food and a warm fire and clothes to my back, and I'm quite content to let the passions go."
"Even love?" he asked, still smiling.
She shrugged her shoulders—gracefully as few women can. "Love among the rest—I don't care—why should I? Make me comfortable."
An impulse which was hardly more than a consuming interest in humanity—in the varied phenomena of life—caused him to draw quickly nearer.
"You say that because you've 'arrived,'" he declared. "You've 'arrived' in love as your friend has in literature. The probationary stage after all is the only one worth while, and you've gone too far beyond it."
"I've gone too far beyond everything," she protested, laughing. "I'm a graduate of the world. Now Laura—"
The name recalled his thoughts and he repeated it while she paused. "Laura—it has a jolly sound—and upon my word I haven't seen a woman in years who has had so much to say to me before I've met her. Do you know, I already like her—I like her smooth black hair, without any of your fussy undulations; I like her strong earnest look and the strength in her brow and chin; I even like the way she dresses—"
Gerty's laugh pealed out, and he broke off with a movement of irritation. "Is it possible that Laura is an enchantress," she demanded, "and have I followed the wrong principle all my life? Has my honest intention to please men led me astray?"
"Oh, you may be funny at my expense if you choose," he retorted, "but I've had enough of fluff and feathers, and I like the natural way she wears her clothes—" Again he smoked in an abstracted silence, and then asked abruptly: "Will you take me some day to see her?"
She shook her head.
"Take you? No, you've missed your opportunity."
"But I'll make another. Why not?"
"Because I tell you frankly she would hate you."
"My dear girl, she wouldn't have a shadow of an excuse. No woman has ever hated me in my life."
"Then there's no use seeking the experience. You'd just as well accept the fact at once that Laura couldn't bear you—"
A laugh followed from the door while the words were still in the air, and turning quickly they saw Laura pausing upon the threshold.
"And pray what is it about Laura?" she asked in her cordial contralto voice. "A person who has borne living in the house with a flute may be said to have unlimited powers of endurance."
She moved forward and Kemper, while he sprang to his feet and stood waiting for the introduction, became swiftly aware that with her entrance the whole atmosphere had taken a fresher and a finer quality. The sophistication of the world, the flippant irony of Gerty's voice gave place immediately before her earnest dignity and before the look of large humanity which distinguished her so vitally from the women whom he knew. He felt her sincerity of purpose at the same instant that he felt Gerty's shallowness and the artificial glamour of the hot-house air in which he had hardly drawn breath. There was an appeal in Laura's face which he had never seen before—an expression which seemed to him to draw directly from the elemental pulse; and he felt suddenly that there were depths of consciousness which he had never sounded, vivid experiences which he had never even glimpsed. "She is different—but how is she different?" he asked himself, perplexed. "Is she simply a bigger personality, or is she really more of a woman than any woman I have ever known? What is it in her that speaks to me and what is it in myself that responds?" And it seemed to him both strange and wonderful that he should be drawn by an impulse which was not the impulse of love—that a woman should attract him through qualities which were independent of the allurement of sex. A clean and perfectly sane satisfaction was the immediate result; he felt that he had grown larger in his own eyes—that the old Adam who had ruled over him so long had become suddenly dwarfed and insignificant. "To like a woman and yet not to make love to her," he repeated in his thoughts. "By Jove, it will be something decent, something really worth while." Then he remembered that he had never known intimately a woman of commanding intellect, and the novelty inspired him with the spirit of fresh adventure.
She had bowed to him over the large muff she carried, and he spoke lightly though his awakened interest showed in his face and voice. "I was the unfortunate subject of Gerty's decision," he said. "Is there no appeal from it?"
Her answering smile was one of indifferent kindliness; and he liked, even while he resented her sincerity of manner. "Appeal! and to whom?" she enquired.
"To you—to your mercy," he laughed.
She glanced at Gerty with a look which hardly simulated a curiosity she apparently did not feel.
"But why should you need my mercy?" she demanded, as she sat down on a little sofa heaped with cushions.
His gaze, after resting a moment on the smooth black hair beneath her velvet hat, turned to the exquisite shining waves which encircled Gerty's head.
"Ask