"I haven’t any mind. I can’t seem to think.... But I don’t think you’d better kiss me until I collect my senses again.... Please don’t, Jim." They became silent again until the car drew up before her door. She had two keys in her cloak pocket; she paused to give the chauffeur an order, turning to ask Cleland whether he didn’t want the car to take him to the Hotel Rochambeau. "Thanks; it’s only a step. I had rather walk." So the car drove away; Cleland opened the front door for her, then her own studio door. She felt around the corner in the darkness and switched on the electric bulb in a standing lamp. "Good night, Steve," he said, taking her hand in both of his. "Good night.... Unless you care to talk to me for a little while." "It’s four o’clock in the morning." "I can’t sleep—I know that." He said in a low voice: "Besides, I am very much in love with you. I think I had better go back." "Oh.... Do you think so?" "Don’t you?" "I told you that I haven’t recovered enough sense to think." She crossed the threshold and walked into the studio, dropping her cloak across a chair; and presently halted before the empty fireplace, gazing into its smoke-blackened depths. For a few moments she stood there in a brown study—a glittering, exquisite figure in the subdued light which fell in tiny points of fire on gem and ring, bracelet and girdle, and tipped the gilded sandals on her little naked feet with sparks of living flame. Then she turned her charming young head and looked across at him where he stood on the threshold. "What do you think?" she said. "Ought you to go?" "I ought to. But I don’t think I shall." "No, don’t go," she said with a little laugh. "After all, if we’re not to remain brother and sister any longer, there’s a most fascinating novelty in your being here." He came in and closed the door. She made room for him on the sofa and he flung his coat across her cloak and seated himself. "Now," she said, dropping one silken knee over the other and clasping her hands around it, "how much can we care for each other without being silly? You know I have a dreadful intuition that I’d better not kiss you any more. Not that I don’t adore you as much as I always did——" She turned squarely around and looked at him out of her lovely eyes: "You took me by surprise. I didn’t understand. Then, suddenly I lost my senses and became panicky. I was scared stiff, Jim—you kissed me so many times——" He reddened and looked down. Under his eyes her bare foot hung in its golden sandal—an exquisite, snowy little foot, quite perfectly fashioned to match her hands’ soft symmetry. "If you loved me," he said, "you would not care how many times I kissed you." "But you kept on—and you kissed my eyes and throat——" "You wouldn’t care what I did if you loved me." "But they were unusual places to be kissed. I was scared. Did you think me ridiculous? It was rather startling, you know. It was such a complete novelty."