The girls looked at each other, Miss Knox with a humorous twinkle in her eye, but nevertheless with a glint of keen appraisal; Andree rather timidly, as if she would like to hide behind Kendall as little Arlette had hidden behind her grandmother’s skirts that morning, and peer out big-eyed at this woman of another race.
Maude Knox extended her hand. “Delighted,” she said, and smiled.
“Mademoiselle is very agreeable,” said Andree, but she did not smile; instead she studied Miss Knox’s face intently and very gravely.
“There’s our train,” said Kendall, at a loss how otherwise to proceed with the conversation, and he snatched Andree away before another word could be exchanged. Maude Knox stood looking after them with a smile that had in it a hint of something that was not humor, that mingled curiosity with pique.
Andree and Kendall alighted from the Metro at the Étoile and walked to the apartment. He was rather taken aback to see the concierge sweeping the walk in front of the entrance, for he had hoped subconsciously to smuggle Andree in without being seen. He could hardly have explained this had he been asked. But he need not have been apprehensive. The concierge stopped, peered at Andree keenly for a second, then smiled and bade them good day. Kendall did not know it, but Andree had been inspected and had passed the inspection handsomely. Andree, however, was well aware of it.
Bert and Madeleine had not arrived, and Kendall showed Andree into their salon with something of a flourish. She stood looking about her at the massive gilt furniture, at the large bronze statue of Diana with a bent arrow in her hand which stood on a pedestal in a corner, and at a bronze monstrosity depicting Ceres which, half life size, overweighted the mantel. Her little nose was curling.
“Oh,” she said in disappointment, “thees is not good. No, no. It is ver’ bad.”
“It is sort of fussy,” said Kendall, more than half afraid that she would take fright at so much wretched taste on exhibition and refuse to remain. She seemed of a mind to beat a retreat. “But don’t blame me for it,” he hastened to say. “It isn’t my furniture, you know. This is a furnished apartment—meublé, you know. I don’t like these gimcracks any better than you do, but I couldn’t help it.”
She continued to shake her head dolefully; then her eyes spied a sort of throne between the windows, a fearful example of what a piece of furniture can be, and clapped her hands with childish delight. “Oh, it ees for me. See!” She ran to it and seated herself on the threadbare seat, her tiny feet dangling above the floor. “Behold!... Regard me!... I am a queen, is it not? You have not the manners. It is that you should kneel. Here ... at once.”
Laughingly he humored her whim and, dropping on one knee, he lifted her hand to his lips. She laughed delightedly. Then she stepped down. “Come. I shall see the rest. You shall show me.” And she insisted upon being shown over the apartment, making little sounds of approval or disapproval as she went, and finally they reached the kitchen where Arlette was busy over the stove.