Audrey nodded.
“Ah! I knew he would. Well, when he comes back he’ll tell you that you must come to one of his real entertainments here, and that this one is nothing. Then he’ll tell you about all the nobs he knows in London. And at last he’ll say that you have a strangely expressive face, and he’d like to paint it and show the picture in the Salon. But he won’t tell you it’ll cost you forty thousand francs. So I’ll tell you that, because perhaps later on, if you don’t know, you might find yourself making a noise like a tenderfoot. You see, Miss Ingate hasn’t concealed that you’re a lady millionaire.”
“No, I haven’t,” said Miss Ingate, glowing and yet sarcastic. “I couldn’t bring myself to, because I was so anxious to see if human nature in Paris is anything like what it is in Essex.”
“And why should you hide it, Winnie?” Audrey stoutly demanded.
“Well, au revoir,” Tommy murmured delicately, with a very original gesture. “He’s coming back.”
As Monsieur Dauphin, having apparently established peace on the roof, approached again, Audrey discreetly examined his face and his demeanour, to see if she could perceive in him any of the sinister things that Tommy had implied. She was unable to make up her mind whether she could or not. But in the end she decided that she was as shrewd as anybody in the place.
“Have you been to my roof-garden, Mrs. Moncreiff?” he asked in a persuasive voice, raising his eyebrows.
She said she had, and that she thought the roof was heavenly.
Then from the corner of her eye she saw Miss Ingate and Tommy sidling mischievously away, like conspirators who have lighted a time fuse. She considered that Tommy, with her red hair and freckles, and strange glances and strange tones full of a naughty and malicious sweetness, was even more peculiar than Miss Ingate. But she was not intimidated by them nor by the illustrious Monsieur Dauphin, so perfectly master of his faculties. Rather she was exultant in the contagion of their malice. Once more she felt as if she had ceased to be a girl a very long time ago. And she was aware of agreeable and exciting temptations.
“Are you taking a house in Paris?” inquired Monsieur Dauphin.