The great studio, to the neglect of the electric chandelier, was lit by half a dozen candles, which flung about conflicting eddies of wavering lights and shadows. In farther corners were a divan, a piano, a portrait on an easel, lounges, waiting like so many shadows to be called forth. A standing lamp, not too near, bathed the couch on which she lay with a softened luster. Her tea-gown of liberty silk, with tones that changed and mingled with each other, was of the purple of the grape, an effect produced, too, by the superimposition of one filmy garment on the other. A slippered foot and ankle came forth from the fragrant disorder of the skirt, either by studied arrangement or by the impulse of a woman who is confident of all her poses. Her nose, quite the most individual feature, was aquiline, yet not such as is associated with a masculine character. Rather, it was vitally sensitive, and gave, in conjunction with the intent and instantaneous aspect of her grayish eyes, the instinctive, almost savage appetite for possession and sensation that is characteristic of her sex. No one looked at her without asking himself a question. Those who believed her under thirty wondered at the experiences that must have crowded in upon her. Those who believed her nearer forty still marveled at her mastery over youth. Those of an analytical mind left her always with a feeling of speculation framed in two questions—whence had she come and where would she end? It was this latter speculation more than any other that absorbed Slade, irresistibly intrigued by the elusiveness of a fascination which he could not analyze. She endured his fixed glance without annoyance, absorbed, too, in the thoughts which his entrance had brought her. Finally, adapting her manner to his, she said with his own abruptness: "Well, what do you want to say to me?" "I’m wondering what you are after in this life, pretty lady?" he said directly. "What do you want?" "Power." "Not to be bored." They smiled by common consent. "And now we know no more than we did before," he said. She stretched out her slender hand against the purple folds of her gown, and her eyes lingered on the jewels that she held caressingly before them—a look that did not escape the man. "By thunder, you’re the strangest thing I’ve run into," he said, shifting his legs. "On each of the eight times we have been alone," she said, smiling, "you have made precisely that same discovery. Did you forget?" "I’d like to know something about you," he said. "How old I am—about my husband—what I am doing here—am I rich—what’s my past—and so on. Consider all these questions asked and refused—for the ninth time. And now, what—why did you come here?" He put aside his cigar impatiently, propelled himself to his feet, and came forward until his knee touched the couch. She looked up, pleasantly aware of so much brute strength held in leash above her. "Sit down."