“No,” he said.
She was silent while they walked the greater part of a block. He repeated again his well-learned phrase, “Will you dine with me?”
“Yes,” she said, in the tone of one making a decision of some moment. “Where?”
“Anywhere you wish.”
They were just passing a little café not distant from the Madeleine, and she stopped hesitatingly, rather speculatively, and there was a subdued twinkle in her eye.
“Here?” she asked.
She was looking for information about this young American, and this was an experiment. The cafe was one of the most expensive in Paris, and doubtless Andree wanted to see how he would act at her suggestion, for reckless spending of money is a thing which your Parisian does not indulge in. Possibly she wanted to find out just how much she attracted him, and one way to do it was to discover if he was willing to spend money on her. It is not impossible that she wondered a bit if he had lots of money, as all Americans are said to do. Your Frenchwoman is not mercenary, but she is practical—and lots of money is an excellent thing to have.
“All right,” he said, in perfect innocence, for he had never seen the place before. It looked rather dingy and not especially attractive. It was very small. So they went in. There was a passage down the middle of the room, with tables on either side, set in solid rows. The waiter moved a table out to admit Andree to the leather bench which ran along the wall. Kendall waited for the table to be replaced so that he could sit across from her, American fashion, but she motioned for him to sit by her side. Young women and men in France sit side by side, not vis-a-vis—and it is a custom not without its advantages.
Ordering was a difficult matter, first because of lack of the language, and second because he was beginning to be very anxious to please this girl and to make a favorable impression on her. With characteristic American generosity or love of displaying his willingness to spend, he would have ordered more than four could have eaten, but she interfered and took the ordering into her own hands—a thing for which he was grateful when the check was presented.... Even when she was making an experiment she could not bear to see money actually wasted.
Kendall studied her covertly. She impressed him as being a grave, very self-possessed young person. The word demure conceals in its meaning something of the provocative. If it were possible to remove that shade of meaning from it, then it would have described Andree exactly. She was demure without being provocative.... And how pretty she was. She grew on one. Those heavily shadowed eyes were really beautiful, and her lips delicately sweet. He made up his mind that she was what he had been accustomed to designate as a lady, which was but another way of saying “nice.”