At last, the blood was coursing through my veins at a pace that became unbearable and I was compelled to unglue my mouth from hers. Still silent, but with love and longing in her eyes, she pressed me into a low chair, and seating herself on the arm, passed her hand behind my head, and looking full into my eyes, whispered my name in accents that were like the sound of a running stream. I kissed her open mouth again and again, and then, feeling that the time had come for some little explanation:

'How long will it be before your friend Eva comes back?' I asked.

'She has gone down into the country, and won't be here till late this evening.'

'Then I may stay with you, may I?'

'Yes, do, do, do, Jack. Do you know, I have got seats for an Ibsen play tonight, I was wondering… if… you would… take me!'

'Take you-to an Ibsen play-with your short frocks, and all that hair down your back! Why, I don't believe they'd let us in?'

'Oh, if that's all, wait a minute.'

She skipped out of the room with a whisk of her petticoats and a free display of brown silk legs. Almost before I had time to wonder what she was up to, she was back again. She had put on a long skirt of Eva's, her hair was coiled on the top of her head, she wore my 'billycock' hat and a pair of blue pincenez, and carrying a crutch-handled stick, she advanced upon me with a defiant air, and glaring down over the top of her glasses, she said in a deep masculine voice:

'Now, sir, if you're ready for Ibsen, I am. Or if your tastes are so low that you can't care about a play, I'll give you a skirt dance.'

As she said this, she tore off the long dress, threw my hat onto a sofa, let down her hair with a turn of the wrist, and motioning me to the piano, picked up her skirts and began to dance.

Enchanted as I was by the humour of her quick change to the 'Ibsen woman', words are vain to describe my feelings as I feebly tinkled a few bars on the piano and watched the dancer.