'Pellucid,' I said.
'Well, then,' he said, 'try out your powers of skeptical reasoning on this proposition: Without knowledge of your powers, and the ability, should the need arise, to use them, you might have been killed. Since your death would have instigated a war, it was thought best to see to it that you could defend yourselves.'
'Why teach us liberal arts? Why raise us among human beings, as humans?'
'You will not believe this now, but in times to come you may. The art and science, poetry and literature, philosophy and thought and myth of mankind exceed the best efforts of the immortal races. Our muses need their artists as much as their artists need our muses. What men had to teach was more rational, fair, and lofty and, in a word, better, than the lessons you would have learned from the Olympians. They are the creatures of Prometheus.'
'You wanted us to feel pity for them, a pity you do not feel yourself, so that when the time came, we would not be willing to see the Earth destroyed.'
He stood up.
Boreas said in a cool voice, 'Do not say 'we,' Miss Windrose. Mr. Triumph has no compassion for mankind; the emotion is unknown to him. Mr. mac FirBolg could not care less about this matter or any other. And your Mr. Nemo is a cold, cold man. He regards morality as a matter of legalisms and maneuver.
'No, Miss Windrose. Much as I wish I could take credit for it, and it would certainly make me seem to be the master of intrigue popular rumor paints (or slanders) me to be, the fact that you have matured into a woman of refined sensibility and noble sentiment, and one moved by compassion for mankind, is a product of your own generous soul.'
He put his hand out toward me, as if offering to help me rise to my feet.
There was something menacing in his gesture. I saw in his eyes, his cool and mocking eyes, that he expected no more resistance from me, or that he could overthrow any resistance I might dare to raise, as easily as he once threw me over his knee.
'Well,' he said, 'at least the adventure was concluded in a satisfactory way. You can carry back many fine memories to comfort you. I speak in an abstract, hypothetical, that is to say, entirely nonliteral way, concerning the retention of memories, of course.'
I am sure I must have looked a picture of misery and helplessness, crouching in a cold tub, hugging knees to my chest, dressed in nothing but suds, shivering. But his eyes were not playing over my exposed flesh (as, for example, Colin's would have been). He was looking me eye-to-eye.
Perhaps I did not look so miserable as I should have done, for he said in a thoughtful voice, 'The prospect does not seem to dismay you.'
'You thought I would fight back?' I said nonchalantly, a proud little lift to my chin.
'Given your history, Miss Windrose, it would be unwise indeed of me to assume otherwise. I also am not entirely convinced of the bona fides of your story. My brethren and I have been watching this hotel for some days, depending on which of them was blowing, and have seen no evidence that you are still in communication with your companions. However, as Dr. Fell taught you in science class, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.'
I did not know how to answer that, and I certainly did not want him to follow that line of reason to its logical conclusion, so that was the moment I chose to stand up.
I tried to do that nonchalantly, too, but all I remember is a painful feeling of embarrassment. I wiped some of the foam off my breasts, stomach, and hips, and bent over to wipe it from my thighs and legs.
I am sure Mata Hari could have done it in a more sensuous and less awkward way. I don't know if it actually had the distracting effect I wanted, because I could not bring myself to stare at anything other than his kneecaps.
I felt the water dripping from my breasts and hips, little rivulets snaking down my thighs. I could feel heat in my face. I must have been blushing like a beet.
Boreas suppressed a smile, and his gaze now did travel, up and down and up again, Colin-like. He nodded, a connoisseur expressing admiration for a fine work of art. Again he raised his hand. He said, 'Well... ahem... Very nice. Please come quietly.'
I didn't move.
He reached out a hand toward my nude shoulder.
At that moment, I felt nothing but his presence. As if the air around him were filled with nothing but him, huge, immense, masculine, masterful. It was not what I was expecting to feel.
There was a heartbeat in my throat, but I swallowed it down, and spoke before his hand touched me. I wondered if it would feel cold, or warm.
'Are you expendable?' I said.
My voice came out cool and nonchalant Perfect. I sounded like the woman in control now, regal and mature. If only I could have brought myself to meet his eyes, I would have seen his reaction to that.
'Aha. Now we come to it,' he muttered in a light drawl, drawing his hand back.
