"Tu viens—oui," she asked, in a low, caressing voice. Their eyes met. He saw the pupils of her narrow eyes grow larger for a second, as though they were striving to express unspoken thoughts. Then they receded and contracted to little, dark, twinkling beads set in their centre of pale blue circles.
"Oui," he said, with a sigh.
They came out into the noisy night of the Boulevard. They walked together, Charnac and Margot with linked arms. The lower floors of the night restaurants were blazing with light, but in the upper rooms the drawn blinds subdued the glare, and transformed it into a warm glow. Cabs and motor-cars came up the steep hill from the Grands Boulevards below for the revelry of supper after the theatre. The great doors of the Chariot d'Or were continually moving, and the uniformed doorkeeper seemed to enjoy the exercise of pulling the door open every second, as women in wraps, accompanied by men, crossed the threshold.
They went upstairs into a long brilliant room, all gold and glass and red plush, with white tablecloths shining in the strong light. In the corner a group of musicians, dressed in a picturesque costume—it might have been taken from any of the Balkan States, or from imagination—played a dragging waltz melody.
A dark woman sat by them, wearing a Spanish dress, orange and spangled, the bodice low-cut, and the skirt fanciful and short, showing her thin legs clad in black open-work stockings. She regarded the room with an air of detached interest, unanswering the glances of the men. She was the wife of the first violinist.
Charnac led the way to a table; he placed himself next to Margot on the red plush sofa-cushions, and Humphrey sat with Desirée. While Charnac was ordering the supper and consulting their individual tastes, Humphrey glanced round the room at the men who sat at the little tables with glasses of sparkling amber wine before them, some of them in evening-dress, with crumpled, soft shirt-fronts, others in lounge suits or morning-coats. Not all had women with them, but the women that he saw were luxurious, beautiful creatures, with indolent eyes and faces of strange beauty.
The lights gleamed under rose-coloured shades on the table, on the silver dishes piled high with splendid fruits, on bottles swathed tenderly with napkins, set in silver ice-pails, on tumblers of coloured wines and liqueurs.
"It's pretty here, eh?" said Desirée.