Part 7 (1/2)
”Mademoiselle,” I said, ”I owe you a thousand apologies. I can a.s.sure you, however, that I have come at the earliest possible moment.”
She motioned me to sit down upon the lounge by her side.
”Monsieur had a more interesting engagement, perhaps?” she murmured.
”Impossible!” I answered.
Now I had come here with no idea whatever of making love to this young lady. My chief interest in her was because she, too, was an habitue of this mysterious cafe; and because, from the first, I felt that she had some other than the obvious reason for sending me that little note.
Nevertheless, it was for me to conceal these things, and I did not hesitate to take her hand in mine as we sat side by side. She did not draw it away, and she did not encourage me.
”Monsieur,” she said, ”do not, I beg of you, be rash. It was foolish of me, perhaps, to meet you here. We can talk for a few minutes, and afterwards, perhaps, we may meet again, but I am frightened all the time.”
”Monsieur Bartot?” I asked.
She nodded.
”He is very, very jealous,” she answered.
”You go with him every night to the restaurant in the Place d'Anjou?”
I asked.
”I go there very often,” she answered. ”Monsieur, unless I am mistaken, is a stranger there.”
I nodded.
”Last night,” I told her, ”I was there for the first time.”
”You came,” she said, toying with her empty liqueur-gla.s.s, ”with Louis.”
”That is so,” I admitted.
”Louis brings no one there without a purpose,” she remarked.
”You know Louis, then?” I asked.
She raised her eyebrows.
”All the world knows Louis,” she continued. ”A smoother-tongued rascal never breathed.”
”Louis,” I murmured, ”would be flattered.”
”Louis knows himself,” she continued, ”and he knows that others know him. When I saw monsieur with him I was sorry.”
”You are very kind,” I said, ”to take so much interest.”
She looked at me, for the first time, with some spice of coquetry in her eyes.
”I think that I show my interest,” she murmured, ”in meeting monsieur here. Tell me,” she continued, ”why were you there with Louis?”