He bowed, a little astonished, I thought. But Fifine struck in immediately, in a very cold voice:—
“We have presumed too much already on M. Cabarus’s good-nature. Please leave him, Felix, to make his own arrangements.”
“They are made, Mademoiselle,” said Carabas gallantly, and with a most charming and ingratiatory smile. “Can Mademoiselle doubt it?”
“I am at a loss for your meaning, Monsieur,” said Fifine. “I have no claim upon your confidence, nor any desire to share my own with a stranger—” and she turned icily away from him.
I never saw a man more taken aback. He looked as if he had received a tumbler of cold water in his face. And when, Fifine having touched my arm, she and I moved to leave the station, he followed in our wake like a crestfallen poodle, pondering, no doubt, that same riddle of woman which had already exercised my mind.
We traversed the dusty stretch from the station to the town in almost complete silence, until, mounting the slope by the amphitheatre, Fifine pressed against me with a sudden exclamation:—
“O, Felix! How beautiful!”
“We will come and see it at sunset,” I said. “That is the great time.”
“Yes, we,” she answered, with a meaning emphasis on the pronoun which gave me an inward chuckle, for Carabas was standing close beside.
She ignored him entirely, even until we had entered the Place du Forum, and stood facing the Hôtel, with our backs to Mistral’s statue; and then she turned upon him with the sweetest smile and her hand extended.