“Well—­of course not.  It isn’t a refuge for the art.  But I have my belief in your being able to sing.  You’re not going to shake that.”

“Very well—­I suppose I’ll try.”  Her hands lifted to her face.  “My cheeks are burning.  Do they look very red?”

“No—­not particularly—­the room’s warm, I think.”

She permitted herself to be satisfied with that explanation.  Had a mirror been near at hand, she would have realized in its reflection that the warmth of the room was not the only cause for the flushed scarlet of her cheeks, or the light that glittered in the expanded pupils of her eyes.

When Devenish had paid the bill, they departed.  A hansom conveyed them back to Sally’s rooms in Regent Street.  Once seated in it, she leaned back in the corner, and her eyes closed.

“I do feel so awfully sleepy,” she said, ingenuously.

He glanced at her swiftly.  Was that simplicity, or a veiled request for him to close his arms about her?  How could she be simple?  The mistress of a man for three years—­what simplicity could be left in her now?  Undoubtedly she must know—­of course she knew by now—­the thoughts that were travelling wildly through his mind.

“Poor child,” he said considerately—­“I suppose you are.”

Her eyes opened to that.  She sat a little straighter in the corner.  There was a tone in his voice more subtle than friendship.  Her ears had heard it, but her senses were too drowsy then to dwell for long upon its consideration.

He would have said more—­in another moment, he would have slipped his arm around her waist, had it not been for her sudden movement of reserve.  That warned him.  Unconsciously a woman gives out of herself the impression of whether she be easy of winning or not.  With Sally, notwithstanding all the circumstances that ranged against her in his mind, Devenish realized that an inconsidered step would be fatal to his desires.  That did not thwart him.  He admired her the more for it; wanted her the more.

When they reached her rooms and, taking off her hat, she seated herself at the piano, creating in the susceptibility of his mind a greater sense of the intimacy of their relations, he stood at the other side of the room watching her, content to let his anticipations slowly drift upon the quiet stream of events to the ultimate cataract of their realization.

This is the true nature of the sensualist.  Woman or man, whatever sex, you may know them by their feline delight in the procrastination of the moment.  It is an evolution of the intellect.  The raw, unbridled forces of nature have no dealings with such as these.  They are people of pleasure.  They have taken the gifts that Nature has offered and, with the subtle cunning of their minds, have torn the inviolable parchment of her laws to shreds before her face.  With no inheritance of the intellect, Devenish possessed all the other qualities.  Sensualist