“But do not let us talk about it,” she added quickly with a mournful smile.

“No, no!” he agreed....  “I see you have a piano.  I expect you are fond of music.”

“Ah!” she exclaimed in a fresh, relieved tone.  “Am I fond of it!  I adore it, quite simply.  Do play for me.  Play a boston—­a two-step.”

“I can’t,” he said.

“But you play.  I am sure of it.”

“And you?” he parried.

She made a sad negative sign.

“Well, I’ll play something out of The Rosenkavalier.”

“Ah!  But you are a musician!” She amiably scrutinised him.  “And yet—­no.”

Smiling, he, too, made a sad negative sign.

“The waltz out of The Rosenkavalier, eh?”

“Oh, yes!  A waltz.  I prefer waltzes to anything.”

As soon as he had played a few bars she passed demurely out of the sitting-room, through the main part of the bedroom into the cabinet de toilette.  She moved about in the cabinet de toilette thinking that the waltz out of The Rosenkavalier was divinely exciting.  The delicate sound of her movements and the plash of water came to him across the bedroom.  As he played he threw a glance at her now and then; he could see well enough, but not very well because the smoke of the shortening cigarette was in his eyes.

She returned at length into the sitting-room, carrying a small silk bag about five inches by three.  The waltz finished.

“But you’ll take cold!” he murmured.

“No.  At home I never take cold.  Besides—­”

Smiling at him as he swung round on the music-stool, she undid the bag, and drew from it some folded stuff which she slowly shook out, rather in the manner of a conjurer, until it was revealed as a full-sized kimono.  She laughed.

“Is it not marvellous?”

“It is.”

“That is what I wear.  In the way of chiffons it is the only fantasy I have bought up to the present in London.  Of course, clothes—­I have been forced to buy clothes.  It matches exquisitely the stockings, eh?”

She slid her arms into the sleeves of the transparency.  She was a pretty and highly developed girl of twenty-six, short, still lissom, but with the fear of corpulence in her heart.  She had beautiful hair and beautiful eyes, and she had that pucker of the forehead denoting, according to circumstances, either some kindly, grave preoccupation or a benevolent perplexity about something or other.

She went near him and clasped hands round his neck, and whispered: 

“Your waltz was adorable.  You are an artist.”

And with her shoulders she seemed to sketch the movements of dancing.

Chapter 4

CONFIDENCE