Part 38 (1/2)
He had muttered the word half aloud and she suddenly opened her eyes. At first she seemed bewildered. Then she smiled and sat up.
”I have been asleep!” she exclaimed.
”A most unnecessary statement,” he answered, smiling. ”I have been standing looking at you for five minutes at least.”
”How fortunate that I gave you the key!” she declared. ”I don't suppose I should ever have heard you. Now please stand there in the light and let me look at you.”
”Why?”
”I want to look at a man who has had supper with Mademoiselle Idiale.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
”Am I supposed to be a wanderer out of Paradise, then?”
She looked at him doubtfully.
”They tell strange stories about her,” she said; ”but oh, she is so beautiful! If I were a man, I should fall in love with her if she even looked my way.”
”Then I am glad,” he answered, ”that I am less impressionable.”
”And you are not in love with her?” she asked eagerly.
”Why should I be?” he laughed. ”She is like a wonderful picture, a marvelous statue, if you will. Everything about her is faultless.
But one looks at these things calmly enough, you know. It is life which stirs life.”
”Do you think that there is no life in her veins, then?” Zoe asked.
”If there is,” he answered, ”I do not think that I am the man to stir it.”
She drew a little sigh of content.
”You see,” she said, ”you are my first admirer, and I haven't the least desire to let you go.”
”Incredible!” he declared.
”But it is true,” she answered earnestly. ”You would not have me talk to these boys who come and hang on at the stage-door. The men to whom I have been introduced by the other girls have been very few, and they have not been very nice, and they have not cared for me and I have not cared for them. I think,” she said, disconsolately, ”I am too small. Every one to-day seems to like big women. Cora Sinclair, who is just behind me in the chorus, gets bouquets every night, and simply chooses with whom she should go out to supper.”
Laverick looked grave.
”You are not envying her?” he asked.
”Not in the least, as long as I too am taken out sometimes.”
Laverick smiled and sat on the arm of her chair.
”Miss Zoe,” he said, ”I have come because you told me to, just to prove, you see, that I am not in the toils of Mademoiselle Idiale.
But do you know that it is half past one? I must not stay here any longer.”
She sighed once more.