Said Christine, conversational, putting the question that lips seemed then to articulate of themselves in obedience to its imperious demand for utterance:
"How long do you think the war will last?"
The man answered with serenity: "The war has not begun yet."
"How English you are! But all the same, I ask myself whether you would say that if you had seen Belgium. I came here from Ostend last month." The man gazed at her with new vivacious interest.
"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."
"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.
"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.
"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.