“Yes.”
He looked at her and smiled, shaking his head.
“Oh, madame, you say that, not at all knowing how much experience I have had.”
She raised her eyebrows slightly and turned to walk on. He followed at her shoulder, and when they came to the little stone stair that leads down to the Promenade, he halted and glanced expressively off among the paths and shade.
“There isn’t time,” she said, shaking her head now.
He went down two steps alone, and then held out his hand with that irresistible smile; she hesitated, looked helplessly around, and then, like all women who hesitate, was forthwith lost, swallowed up, in the maze of those wandering paths. Von Ibn secured his cane well beneath his arm and lit a cigarette.
“Do I ever now ask you ‘may I’?” he said.
“You never did ask me ‘might you?’” she replied.
He drew two or three satisfied puffs.
“It is good to be so friends,” he commented placidly, and then he took his cane into his right hand again and swung it with the peculiarly vigorous swing which in his case always betrayed the possession of an uncommon degree of bonne humeur. “And now for your experience?” he asked after a little. “It is that which I will to hear.”