“They’re in the salon.”
“Come. We shall see them—now.” Again that quaint gesture of poking downward at the floor with a slender finger. “Thees minute.”
The girls shook hands formally and lapsed into an amazing splutter of French. Ken looked from one to the other, from Andree, tiny, fragile, dark, elfin, to Madeleine, tall, slender, fair of hair, always laughing. Madeleine seemed nothing but embodied laughter; Andree seemed to him now as she always seemed to him, a mystery, incomprehensible—a being come to him out of a land of wonders.
“Bert is going away,” he said.
“For how long?”
“Three weeks.”
“Oh, it ees a lifetime. Mademoiselle will be ver’ sad.”
“She says not,” Ken said.
“It is not possible. She will be mos’ sad.”
“Not Madeleine,” said Bert. “She’s going to find another American officer to keep her happy while I’m gone.”