They looked into one another's eyes and measured swords, and if she had
known it she had never so deeply attracted him before.

She had broached the subject of her return to England to her godmother,
who had laughed the idea to scorn, but now she spoke to Gritzko as if
it were an established fact.

"I go home from Moscow, you know," she said.

"You find our country too cold?" he asked.

"It is too full of contrasts, freezing one moment and thawing the next,
and while outside one is turned to ice, indoors one is consumed with
heat; it is upsetting to the equilibrium."

"All the same, you will not go," and he leaned back in the chair with
his provoking lazy smile.

"Indeed, I shall."

"We shall see. There are a number of things for you to learn yet."

"What things?"

The Prince lit a cigarette. "The possibilities of the unknown fires you
have lit," he said. "You remember the night at the Sphinx, when we said
good-bye. I told you a proverb they have there about meeting before
dawn, and not parting until dawn. Well, that dawn has not arrived yet.
And I have no intention--for the moment--that it shall arrive."