'Yes,' she answered simply, 'do you like it?'
Andrea still held the mantle in his hands. He buried his face in the fur
collar which had been next her throat and her hair--'What is it called?'
he inquired.
'It has no name.'
She re-seated herself in the arm-chair within the circle of the
firelight. Her dress was of black lace, on which sparkled a mass of tiny
jet and steel beads.
The day was fading from the windows. Andrea lit candles of twisted
orange-coloured wax in wrought-iron candlesticks, after which he drew a
screen before the fire.
During this pause, both felt a certain perplexing uneasiness; Elena was
no longer exactly conscious of the moment, nor was she quite mistress of
herself. In spite of all her efforts she was unable to recall with
precision her motives for coming here, to follow out her
intentions--even to regain her force of will. In the presence of this
man to whom, once upon a time, she had been bound by such passionate
ties, and in this spot where she lived the most ardent moments of her
life, she felt her reserve melting, her mind wavering and growing
feeble. She was at that dangerously delicious point of sentiment at
which the soul receives its every impulse, its attitudes, its form from
its external surroundings as an aerial vapour from the mutations of the
atmosphere. But she checked herself before wholly giving way to it.
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