She went trailing back to her own room in the yellow negligée, and shut herself in, happy enough to be alone and unobserved. After all, what did it matter if she couldn’t come down to dinner, couldn’t see him at all that evening? She could think about him; she could recall his face and his voice; rejoice again in that unaccountable thrill. She leaned back in her chair, her arms clasped behind her head, a strange and divinely stupid smile on her lips. Just at the threshold of love she was lingering, in that little moment before there is desire or pain, when love is without substance, without thought, a dim ecstasy, with no more motive, no more basis for its joy, than the dream of an opium-smoker. "Gawd!" she said to herself, with a grin. "I guess I’m hit _this_ time, all right!" II There was a knock at the door. She went leisurely to open it, with the expectation of seeing her dinner served on a tray; but it was Eddie, the loyal Eddie, come to fetch her. He was rather pale and quite unsmiling. "If you’ll get dressed," he said. "We’re waiting for you to come to dinner." "Mrs. Geraldine said----” "It doesn’t matter. You must come. I wouldn’t sit down without you." He looked at her, and his face twitched. She looked so strange, so terribly aloof! He was unstrung, anyhow. He had had a beastly interview with his brother, and a somewhat unpleasant five minutes with Polly, whom he so much admired. He had really annoyed her, for the sake of this devilish girl. He was filled with dread and distress, with a wretched sense of impending calamity--what people call a presentiment. Perhaps it was because his mind unconsciously recognized all the elements here for a hellish conflagration. "Hurry, won’t you?" he said. "We’re waiting." She did hurry, and her dressing took only ten minutes; but she was very much surprised to find Eddie still waiting for her, and still more surprised when he took her by the arm and for the first time used her name. "Angelica!" he said in a low voice. "What?" she asked, startled. "Don’t!" "Don’t what, Mr. Eddie?" He didn’t answer, but he squeezed her arm, and when she looked up into his face it was desperately anxious. "All right!" she said, half understanding what he wished her to understand. For she, too, was vaguely aware of danger; she, too, could dimly perceive whither her eager feet were leading her; but she ran to it, flew to it. She, too, had an odd and terrible feeling of approaching ill fortune. She felt disaster drawing near, yet was not able even to wish to avoid it. She sat down at the table, next to Vincent; and she hadn’t been there for fifteen minutes before she was lost. His bold eyes rested on her face, and all her own boldness turned to surrender, her own fierceness melted. She couldn’t turn away from him; she sat very still, enthralled, listening to his voice, watching his mobile face, the fine, straight brows moving so expressively, his supple hands.