“Anywhere you like,” he answered; and thus it came about that a few minutes later he found himself seated before her at a small table in a quiet restaurant. She was decidedly attractive. Her grey eyes were tender and sympathetic; the expression of her mouth was kindly; and her dark hair, which was drawn down over her ears, was soft and alluring. She was wearing a low-necked black-velvet dress, and her slender throat and shoulders by contrast seemed to be very white.
Her broken English, however, was her chiefest charm; and Daniel listened with pleasure as she talked away, candidly answering his somewhat direct questions in regard to her early life and adventures. She hailed originally, she told him, from Marseilles; but when her widowed mother had died she had found herself at the age of seventeen, alone and penniless. She had got into bad company, and at length had been advised by a well-meaning young British guardsman, on his way to Egypt, to ply her trade in Cairo. Here she had become a great favourite with his particular battalion, and in fact, was so monopolized by them that when she was seen in the company of a civilian her action was said to be “by kind permission of the Colonel and officers” of the regiment in question.
“Good Lord, what a life!” said Daniel.
“But what else can a girl do,” she asked, “after the little first mistake, eh? I get plenty good food; I not work eight hours, ten hours, every day to get thirty francs the week; I not live in the little top one room and cry: no, I have the beautiful appartements au premier étage, and I laugh always—plenty friends, plenty dresses, plenty sun.”
At a table at the other side of the room, Daniel had noticed, while she was talking, a heavy-jowled, red-faced young officer who was seated alone, and whose sullen eyes appeared to be fixed upon him. The girl’s back was turned to this man; but presently she observed that her companion was not paying attention to her remarks, and, wondering what had attracted his attention, she looked behind her. Immediately she uttered a little angry exclamation, and made an impatient shrug with her shoulders.
“That is a beast,” she said.
“He’s drunk, I think,” Daniel remarked. “Is he a friend of yours?”
She made a gesture of denial. “He hate me because I not let him come home with me ever.”
“Why not?” he asked.
“Because he very cruel pig-man. He beat his dog. I see him beat his dog.”