Henriette flushed and her eyes grew as hard as buttons. “And why shouldn’t she be here?” she asked with a resentful challenge. “Just like the rest of us! Or do you think her so different as those idiots do over at the table there? But I will tell you one thing,” and she nodded her head emphatically. “She will not be here long—no, nor anywhere else, the little fool! But, there!—” Henriette’s anger died away as quickly as it had flared up. “She is not a bad sort and quite friendly with us girls.”
“And why will she not stay here long?” asked Gerard.
“Oh, ask her yourself, if you are so curious,” she cried impatiently. “But you are dull, you two! No, you are not amusing me at all,” and, emptying her glass, Henriette flung off into the saloon as the accompanist began once more to belabour the keys of the piano.
Gerard watched her go with a shrug of the shoulders and a laugh. He turned then towards Paul and Paul’s chair was empty. Paul had risen the moment Henriette had flung away and was walking at the back of the tables towards the doorway into the Bar. Gerard watched him curiously and with a certain malicious amusement. Was he, too—that serious one—to go at last the way of all flesh? To seek the conventional compensation for a long period of strenuous service in the facile amours of the coast towns?
The beginning of the affair, at all events, was not conventional. Gerard noticed, with a curious envy which he had not thought to feel, that Paul Ravenel went quietly to the back of that noisy table in the Bar, and stood just behind Marguerite Lambert. No one at the table noticed him nor did Marguerite turn. But she rose slowly to her feet, like a person in a dream. Only then did the men drinking at the table look toward Paul Ravenel. A strange silence fell upon them, as Marguerite turned about and went towards Paul. For a moment they stood facing one another. Then Marguerite fell in at his side, as though an order had been given and they moved away from the group at the table, slowly, like people alone, quite alone in an empty world. And no word had been spoken by either of them to the other, nor did either of them smile; and their hands did not touch. But as they reached the open floor where a few were dancing, Marguerite glanced quickly, and to Gerard’s fancy, with fear, at the fat woman behind the Bar; and then she spoke. There was no doubt what she was saying.
“We had better dance for a few moments.”
Paul took her in his arms, and they danced. Gerard de Montignac rose and went out of the Villa Iris. The picture of the meeting between those two was still vivid before his eyes. It was as though an order had been given and both without haste or question had perfectly obeyed it.
CHAPTER VII
The Pilgrimage
When they reached the wide doorway they slipped out onto the balcony. It was cool here and quiet and there was no light except that which came from the Bar. They sat down at a table apart from the others and close to the garden. A waiter followed them out quickly and looked at Marguerite for an order.