"Ha—I am ver' glad to find you alone, Mees Teesdale, I lak have leetle talk with you." There was a purposeful look behind his set smile of agreeableness.
She shrank from him a little as he came close to her, but he appeared not to notice the movement, and went on—
"I hear you are in trouble—eh? I hear you get fire from ze hotel?"
Again the girl's face took on its new look of bitterness. That was the way in which they were expressing it, spreading the news throughout the town. They were losing no time—her friends.
"'Fired' is the word when a biscuit-shooter is dismissed," she returned coldly.
"I hear you get lef' by that loafer, too. I tole you, mam'selle, that fellow Van Lennop no good. I know that kind, I see that kind before, Mees Teesdale. Lak every pretty girl an' have good time, then 'pouf!—zat is all!"
She turned upon him hotly, her face a mixture of humiliation and angry resentment.
"You can't criticise him to me, Mr. Dubois! I won't listen. If I have been fool enough to misunderstand his kindness that's my fault, not his."
Dubois's eyes became suddenly inscrutable. After a moment's silence he said quietly—
"You love heem, I think. Zat iss too bad for you. What you do now, Mees Teesdale? Where you go?"