Cytherea, at this moment, would be softly illuminated by the shifting
glow of the fire and, remote in her magical perspective, would seem at
the point of moving, of beckoning for him with her lifted hand.
"What were you seeing in the smoke?" Savina asked; and he replied with
an adequate truth, "You."
"Why not just look at me, then, instead of staring?"
"I see you everywhere."
"Adorable," she whispered.
No such name, no terms of endearment, occurred to him for her; why, he
didn't know; but they had no place in his present situation. He had to
think of Savina as removed from whatever had described and touched
other special women. The words which had always been the indispensable
property of such affairs were now distasteful to him. They seemed to
have a smoothly false, a brassy, ring; while he was fully, even gaily,
committed, he had a necessity to make his relationship with Savina
Grove wholly honest. As he paid the account she asked him if he were
rich.
"Your husband wouldn't think so," he replied; "yet I am doing well
enough; I can afford dinner and the theatre."
"I wish you had a very great deal of money."
"Why?" He gazed at her curiously.
"It's so useful," Savina told him generally; but that, he felt, was not
completely what was in her mind. "What I have," she went on, "is quite
separate from William's. It is my mother's estate.
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