Twilight Sleep
"Doesn't look much like it, does it? . . . Why, what are you staring at? Didn't you know I was going in for the movies? Immobility was never my strong point. . ." She threw the paper down, and began to undo her furs with a lazy smile, sketching a dance step as she did so. "Why do you look so shocked? If I don't do that I shall run away with Michelangelo. I suppose you know that Amalasuntha's importing him? I can't stick this sort of thing much longer . . . Besides, we've all got a right to self-expression, haven't we?"
Manford continued to look at her. He hardly heard what she was saying, in the sickness of realizing what she was. Those were the thoughts, the dreams, behind those temples on which the light laid such pearly circles !
He said slowly: "This picture—it's true, then? You've been there?"
"Dawnside? Bless you—where'd you suppose I learnt to dance? Aunt Kitty used to plant me out there whenever she wanted to go off on her own—which was pretty frequently." She had tossed off her hat, slipped out of her furs, and lowered the flounce of the lamp-shade; and there she stood before him in her scant slim dress, her arms, bare to the shoulder, lifted in an amphora-gesture to her little head.
"Oh, children—but I'm bored!" she yawned.
