“It is not well. Go and fetch her.... Now.... At once. Or I shall go away.” She shook her head and made stiff little gestures with her hand, but when he stood in front of her she twinkled at him and placed both hands in his when he held them out toward her. He retained them a moment and then raised them to his lips.
“You’re a sweet child,” he said.
“Oh, I do not onderstan’....I do not know.... Where is the dictionnaire?”
“No matter.... There’s Arlette announcing dinner.” It was Arlette’s custom to poke her head through the door when dinner was ready and to stare into the room silently and a little affrightedly. She never spoke. It was necessary to watch for the appearance of her head if one wanted to know when the meal was served.
Bert came in and Andree asked after Madeleine’s health as if she considered Bert personally responsible for it, demanding why she was not present.
“Ken’s afraid you don’t like her,” Bert said, mischievously.
“Mais oui.... Mais oui. I do like. I like ver’ much. Why you theenk?” She turned to Ken with the question.
“Don’t pay any attention to Bert. He thinks he has a sense of humor,” Ken said, but his ears were red, nevertheless, a circumstance which did not escape Andree’s sharp eyes. She let the matter pass and addressed herself to her food with that detachment from all other matters which always brought a smile to Kendall’s face. There were so many quaint, delightful attributes in her....
Toward the end of the dinner the diners heard a subdued whispering and giggling without, and then appeared little Arlette, bearing a dessert—a wonderful dessert. It was a pudding with a white frothiness of beaten egg covering it. It was a real dessert—the first, if one excepts fruit and ices without authority, that Ken had seen since he came to France. Little Arlette carried it to the table, and stood, big-eyed, mouth pursed, waiting for the astonishment which the miracle was to cause.... Arlette herself, wiping her chin on the back of her hand and grinning with delight, allowed her head to be seen through the door.
“It is from the concierge,” she said, very rapidly. “She sends it to messieurs with her compliments.”