"But where does Denis come in?" enquired the Jewess, who was not too prone to jump to hasty conclusions concerning other people's triumphs.
"Well, don't you see,—Denis saw him, and saw that I sometimes stared back at him."
"Oh, is that all?" Vanessa exclaimed, with a somewhat exaggerated note of disappointment in her voice. "But did he say anything then?"
"Yes, after the bathe," Leonetta rejoined, dropping her voice to a whisper, "he asked me whether I knew that strange young man."
"Well?" Vanessa demanded, still retaining the note of disappointed expectancy in her voice.
"That's all," Leonetta replied, conscious that Vanessa had ruined the effect of her little narrative.
For some moments Vanessa silently continued her toilet; then when she was quite ready to go downstairs, she sat down and waited for her friend.
"Are you fond of Denis?" she enquired at last.
"He's not bad," replied Leonetta carelessly. "What do you think he thinks of me?"
Vanessa's keen Jewish features became inscrutable in a moment, and her eyes turned as it were indifferently to the window. A week ago she might have replied that Denis was obviously "smitten"; but four days of almost total neglect and really formidable rivalry are hard to forgive, even when one flatters oneself that one is "above" such treatment.