“You see her often—and you love her.”
“I didn’t know she was in Paris until last night, and I certainly don’t love her.” She had withdrawn into herself and become a stranger to him. It startled him, frightened him, not so much because she had withdrawn herself from him, for he guessed that it was mostly pretense, but because he had a glimpse of what it would mean to him if she should withdraw herself utterly. “I don’t love anybody but you,” he said, and he said it without wishing or intending to say it.
“No,” she said, decidedly. “It ees not possible. You mock me.”
Before he could enter upon protestations Bert opened the outer door and handed a young woman into the apartment. Kendall could see that she was tall and rather slight, but that was all. He was anxious for her to appear, first out of curiosity, but principally to be reassured as to Andree’s reception of the stranger.
In a moment Bert appeared in the door with the girl at his side, both laughing as at some joke which had just been uttered.
“Hello, children!” Bert said, a trifle noisily. “Mademoiselle Andree, is it not?” He advanced and took the hand which she held out to him primly while she studied his face with a calm, inscrutable expression. “Mademoiselle Andree, Monsieur Ken, this is Mademoiselle Madeleine.”
Both shook hands with the laughing girl, Andree still with that restraint which was always hers at a first meeting, Kendall with relief, for he liked Madeleine’s looks. She was taller than Andree by inches, and not at all beautiful as Andree was beautiful. The key-note of her character at first glance seemed to be joyousness, a lightness of heart, good nature. Her mouth was rather broad, but not displeasingly so, for it was always showing her white teeth through a smile that seemed to be the commencement of a laugh. She was always laughing, always moving her body or her hands as if the young life that was in her could not be still.... And yet there was a shrewd look about her eyes which advertised that here was no empty head, but a capable young person indeed.... She was a distinct blonde, with hair which seemed always just on the point of being disordered, yet which never seemed to lose control of itself and become disordered. Later Kendall wondered if Madeleine and her hair were not very much alike in character.
“All right, eh?” said Bert, proudly, patting Madeleine’s shoulder.
She threw him a laughing, affectionate glance, and in another instant she and Andree were chattering to each other with a rapidity which was not only astonishing, but utterly unintelligible to the boys. If Andree spoke with bewildering rapidity, what could one say of Madeleine? Kendall laughed.
“Mademoiselle Mitrailleuse,” he said, and it was a name that clung, for it was so apt. She was a veritable machine-gun, shooting out words with a rapidity almost incredible.