"Does that smile mean you're coming? Ah, _do_! Marco Amaldi is the most heavenly man I ever knew ... except Varesca."
Suddenly Sophy's smile faded and her eyes grew dark.
"Now you've got your 'fey' look," said Mrs. Arundel, watching her curiously. "What does it mean? Going with me?"
Sophy did not speak at once. Her eyes seemed to watch something forming slowly, far away--something that gathered distinctness against the confused background of life's harlequinade. Suddenly she started, closed her eyelids an instant, then looked at Olive. Her eyes were still wide and vague. They looked slightly out of focus, like the eyes of a baby staring at a flame. Olive felt a little shiver go over her.
"What is it?" she asked. "What do you see?"
"Nothing. It's just a feeling. I'll go with you. Something is going to happen to me to-night. Something important. The room will have three windows----"
She broke off again, and looked from Olive's face, far away.
Mrs. Arundel's voice took on an awed tone. "Are you really superstitious, Sophy?"
"About a room with three windows. Don't ask me. I can't explain it. It's just a feeling."
"Olive!... Come along! We'll be late!" shouted Arundel, from the hall.
The two women went down together, Mrs. Arundel still rather awed. Sophy's eyes were really so uncanny sometimes. Very, very beautiful, of course, but eerie. Now if she, Olive Arundel, were a man--she would prefer something less peculiar, more "human." Olive was very fond of this word, "human." She felt that, like charity, it covered a multitude of sins--pretty, pleasant little sins.
When they reached the Ponceforths', the musicale was in full swing. Some one was singing a song by Maude Valerie White. Sophy heard a little gasp from Olive--her arm was impetuously seized.
"Sophy," she whispered, in spite of the singing, "there _are_ three windows!"
Sophy, too, was gazing at the windows. She said nothing. An artist had lent his flat to the Ponceforths for their musicale. The big studio made such a capital place for singing. There were three wide windows at one end.
Sophy moved forward as in a sort of daze, half pleasant, half fearful. That feeling as of an imminent crisis grew on her. Some one brought her to a chair. It was a little apart from the other chairs. She sat rather rigidly, her hands one over the other in her lap. Her profile shone like pearly gold against a curtain of brown velvet. Presently she felt that some one was watching her with peculiar intentness. Little spangles of sensation crept over the back of her head. It was as though a little electric feather were being drawn softly along her hair. Then Jean de Reszke began to sing. It was a wild Hungarian folk-song that he sang with that warm, wild voice of his. The words meant nothing to her. The voice told her that it was a song of love and the despair even of love fulfilled.