I wondered idly what Morenita and Villedo thought of our relations. They must surely guess.
We went down the boulevard and by the Rue Royale into the Place de la Concorde, where vehicles flitted mysteriously in a maze of lights under the vast dome of mysterious blue. And Paris, in her incomparable toilette of a June night, seemed more than ever the passionate city of love that she is, recognising candidly, with the fearless intellectuality of the Latin temperament, that one thing only makes life worth living. How soft was the air! How languorous the pose of the dim figures that passed us half hidden in other carriages! And in my heart was the lofty joy of work done, definitely accomplished, and a vista of years of future pleasure. My happiness was ardent and yet calm—a happiness beyond my hopes, beyond what a mortal has the right to dream of. Nothing could impair it, not even Diaz’ continued silence as to a marriage between us, not even the imminent brief separation that I was to endure.
‘My child,’ said Diaz suddenly, ‘I’m very hungry. I’ve never been so hungry.’
‘You surely didn’t forget to have your dinner?’ I exclaimed.
‘Yes, I did,’ he admitted like a child; ‘I’ve just remembered.’
‘Diaz!’ I pouted, and for some strange reason my bliss was intensified, ‘you are really terrible! What can I do with you? You will eat before you leave me. I must see to that. We can get something for you at the hotel, perhaps.’
‘Suppose we go to a supper restaurant?’ he said.
Without waiting for my reply, he seized the dangling end of the speaking-tube and spoke to the driver, and we swerved round and regained the boulevard.
And in the private room of a great, glittering restaurant, one of a long row of private rooms off a corridor, I ate strawberries and cream and sipped champagne while Diaz went through the entire menu of a supper.
‘Your eyes look sad,’ he murmured, with a cigar between his teeth. ‘What is it? We shall see each other again in a fortnight.’