Then _he_ laughed and the constraint was dissipated like a morning mist. They drew nearer to the table and Pancha offered the wine. To be polite she took a little herself and Mayer, controlling grimaces as he sipped, asked her about her career. She told him what she was willing to tell; nothing of her private life which she thought too shamefully sordid. It was a series of jumps from high spot to high spot in her gradual ascent. He noticed this and judged it as a story edited for the public, it tallied so accurately with what he had heard already from the florist. There was evidently a rubber stamp narrative for general circulation. After she had concluded he made his first advance, lightly with an air of banter. "And how does it come that in this long, lonely struggle you've stayed unmarried?" A belated coquetry--Pancha climbing up had wasted no time on such unassisting arts--stirred in her. She tilted her head and shot a look at him from the sides of her eyes. "I guess no one came along that filled the bill." "Among all the men that must have come along?" "Um-um," she stood her glass on the table, turning its stem with her long brown fingers. "The lady must be hard to please." "Maybe she is." Her eyes rested on the ruby liquid in the glass. The lids were fringed with black lashes that grew straightly downward, making a semicircle of little, pointed dashes on each cheek. He could not decide whether she was embarrassed or slyly amused. "Or perhaps she's just wedded to her art." "That cuts some ice, I guess." "Love is known to improve art. Haven't you ever heard that?" "I shouldn't wonder. I've heard an awful lot about love." "Only heard, never felt? Never responded to any of the swains that have been crowding round?" "How do you know they've been crowding round?" He leaned nearer, gently impressive: "What I'm looking at tells me so." She met his eyes charged with sentimental meaning, and burst into irrepressible laughter. "Oh, _you_--shut up! I ain't used to such hot air. I'll have to open the windows and let in the cold." It was not what he had expected and he felt rebuffed. Dropping back in his chair, he shrugged his shoulders. "What can I say? It's not fair to let me come here and then muzzle me." "Oh, I ain't going as far as that. But you don't have to talk to me that way. I'm the plain, sensible kind." He shook his head, slowly, incredulously. "No, I've got to contradict you. Lips can tell lies but eyes can't. You're a good many other things but you're not sensible." "What other things?" "Charming, fascinating, piquant, with a heart like a bright, glowing coal." She threw back her head and let her laughter, rich and musical, float out on the room.