The moment she asked herself whether she dared she did dare. Not to have dared would to have been to be inferior to those great and splendid and reckless ones who had turned their eyes on their lovers and had whispered, "Antony--Louis--I am here!" If she courted less danger than she knew, her daring remained the same. And the room itself backed her up. So many doctrines were enunciated in that studio, the burden of one and all of which was "Why not?" The atmosphere was charged with permissions ... perhaps for him too. He was at the door now. It was only the turning of a key.... Amory's low-thrilled voice called his name across the studio. "Edgar----" But he had thought no less quickly than she. He had turned. Shrewdly he guessed that she meant nothing; so much the better--damn it! There was something female about Edgar Strong; he knew more about some things than a young man ought to know; and in an instant he had found the "line" he meant to take. It was the "line" of honour rooted in dishonour--the "line" of Cosimo his friend--the "line" of black treachery to the hand that fed him with muffins and anchovy paste--or, failing these, the all-or-nothing "line."... But on the whole he would a little rather go straight than not.... Nor did he hesitate. Amory had turned on the sofa. "Edgar!" she had called softly again. He swung round. The savagery of his reply--there seemed to Amory to be no other word to describe it--almost frightened her. "Do you know what you're doing?" he broke out. "Haven't you done enough already? What do you suppose I'm made of?" The moment he had said it he saw that he had made no mistake. It would not be necessary to go the length of turning the key. He glared at her for a moment; then he spoke again, less savagely, but no less curtly. "You called me back to say something," he said. "What is it?" Instinctively Amory had covered her face with her hands. It was fearfully sweet and dangerous. Flattery could hardly have gone further than that tortured cry, "What do you think I'm made of?" Her heart was thumping--thump, thump, thump, thump. A lesser woman would have taken refuge in evasions, but not she--not she, with Cosimo carrying on with Britomart, and Dorothy Tasker no doubt whispering to her Otis or Wilbur or whatever her American's name might be, and Stan perhaps deep in an intrigue with his Spanish female at that very moment. No, she had provoked him, and he had now every right to cry, not "Have you read '_The Tragic Comedians_'?" but "Do you know what you're doing?"... And he was speaking again now.