"Brains?"
"Oh, don't ask me."
"What's he see in her?"
"What are you so interested for? How do I know what any man sees in a woman? You're all alike. I suppose when Herrick tries to kiss her she screams, and that'd be enough to interest him."
The girl smiled. When she smiled the corners of her lips turned up over small, uneven teeth. With a shrug of indifference she slipped her hand into Flop's and they turned toward an excited group at the other end. Here a slight man in a brown flannel shirt and red tie, with gestures preserved from his student days in Paris, was arguing a technical point in Verlaine. But as none of his listeners understood French, he was finding it hard to maintain the requisite heat. When he caught sight of the girl he appealed to her excitedly in a French whose studied correctness made her laugh. She answered in a flood of rapid patois incomprehensible to him. A smile ran round the group. Instantly the girl's mood changed.
"Listen. It is impossible to translate. But listen. You will hear his heart beating, throb, throb, in the French."
Her arms dropped to her sides. The heavy white lids lowered over the red eyes. For a moment she stood so, artificial and decadent. Then she began in a low, sweet voice that seemed to have nothing to do with her body.
Her voice flowed in waves across the great room and melted into the shadows. Flop listened with his hands before his face. The strutting of the man in the brown shirt ceased. The Kitten hid her face on Herrick's shoulder and his arms closed about her.
The girl went on, poem after poem. Herrick's eyes filled with tears and his hold tightened on The Kitten. She shivered, pressed her lips deeper into his neck, and kissed him with sudden, sharp kisses that bit like hot coals. For half an hour the voice continued. It burned away the memory of the day behind, of the sea, of the exacting faith in Jean's gray eyes. This was the reality, this passion that throbbed in the poet's words, the girl's voice, the scorching kisses of the small, quivering figure in his arms. To feel and feel and feel.
The voice stopped as suddenly as it had begun. With the shudder of a medium coming from a trance, the girl opened her eyes. Instantly the purity of the listening silence was spotted with exaggerated exclamations of delight. They crowded about her. Flop brought a glass of wine, and sitting on his knee she sipped it, while her eyes wandered to the corner where Herrick had sat and stroked The Kitten's hands. The corner was empty. She grinned, and at Flop's request kissed him lightly on the lips.