"Artists are always late!" He assented, watching her. "This the dining-room?" she said, moving to the right. "Wait!" "Why?" "I want to give you a surprise." "I know it already!" "What?" "There's no party at all; we're dining together," she said, looking at him directly. "Don't lie. Besides, I knew it all the time!" "What?" he said amazed. "Naturally! Do you think I would be here if I didn't want to be? Well, to-night, then, is the big temptation? I hope you'll be very interesting!" "So you knew!" he said, pursing his lips. "You're disappointed because I'm not afraid!" she told him, laughing. "Well, I'm not! Besides, I have taken my precautions!" "What do you mean?" he asked uneasily. "There's a door from the dressing-room into the vestibule--you gave me plenty of time," she said quietly. "There happened to be a party I knew below when we came in, or we would not be here. They are to take me home--later." "You went down--" he said slowly, at a loss whether to believe her or not. She nodded, and still incredulous, he went to the dressing-room, assuring himself that she had at least spoken the truth about the door. "Well?" she said, folding her arms and laughing at him, but feeling every nerve and fiber alert with the sense of combat. "Miss Baxter," he answered, standing by her and fastening his heavy oriental gaze on hers, "I have never, in all my life, wanted a woman as I want you!" "I hope so!" "Don't you know that?" "It's the devil in me, then." "The devil and the child," he said quietly. She didn't like his look, so she motioned him away, saying: "Something to eat first, please, and business later." "With any other woman I would understand that," he said, without shifting his gaze. "Perhaps I am simpler than you think?" "Let's go in to dinner!" he said abruptly. He went to the curtain and drew it aside deferentially. She went past him quickly, watching him from under her eyelashes, choosing that seat at the table which would give her quick retreat in case of need. The waiter, bald and correctly vacant of expression, arrived after a discreet knock, and with the swinging of the door came a sudden burst of laughter from an arriving party. She waved away the proffered cocktail. "Nothing?" he asked. "At such an important interview? Of course not!" He raised his glass to her honor, and she nodded. "You don't look so terrible, after all," she said, examining him with a critical smile; and to herself she said disdainfully, as she had said another time: "If this is a dangerous man, what is it makes him dangerous?" But this query was not simply of amusement. The seriousness of life had so obtruded itself upon her, in the last preparatory weeks, that she wanted to know everything, to have before her in detail that existence which could depend on his soft hands and wearied eyes. "So I puzzle you very much?" "You know you do!" he said, with a slow smile, still resolved to continue the rôle of _bon enfant_.