melt if I implore her?

"And yet I've come to Asgard,
And hope I shall not bore her
If I tell Mistress Westgard
How deeply I adore her----"

Through the hum of conversation and capricious laughter, Vanya's vague
music drifted like wind-blown thistle-down, and his absent regard
never left Marya, where she rested among the cushions in low-voiced
dialogue with Jim.

"I had hoped," she smiled, "that you had perhaps remembered me--enough
to stop for a word or two some day at tea-time."

He had had no intention of going; but he said that he had meant to and
would surely do so,--the while she was leisurely recognising the lie
as it politely uncoiled.

"Why won't you come?" she asked under her breath.

"I shall certainly----"

"No; you won't come." She seemed amused: "Tell me, are you too a
concentrationist?" And her beryl-green eyes barely flickered toward
Palla. Then she smiled and laid her hand lightly on her breast: "I, on
the contrary, am a Diffusionist. It's merely a matter of how God
grinds the lens. But prisms colour one's dull white life so gaily!"

"And split it up," he said, smiling.

"And disintegrate it," she nodded, "--so exquisitely."

"Into rainbows."

"You do not believe that there is hidden gold there?" And, looking at
him, she let one hand rest lightly against her hair.

"Yes. I believe it," he said, laughing at her enchanting effrontery.
"But, Marya, when the rainbow goes a-glimmering, the same old grey
world is there again. It's always there----"

"Awaiting another rainbow!"

"But storms come first."

"Is another rainbow not worth the storm?"

"Is it?" he demanded.

"Shall we try?" she asked carelessly.

He did not answer. But presently he looked across at Vanya.

"Who is there who would not love him?" said Marya serenely.

"I was wondering."

"No need. All love Vanya. I, also."

"I thought so."

"Think so. For it is quite true.... Will you come to tea alone with me
some afternoon?"

He looked at her; reddened. Marya turned her head leisurely, to hear
what Palla was saying to her. At the sound of her voice, Jim turned
also, and saw Palla bending near his shoulder.

"I'm sorry," she was saying to Marya, "but Questa Terrett desires to
know Jim----"

"Is it any wonder," said Marya, "that women should desire to know
him? Alas!--" She laughed and turned to Ilse, who seated herself as
Jim stood up.