"I have wondered about you. Mon Dieu, how I have wondered! And I used to think about Mac."
Mary's eyes filled with tears.
"Pierre! You remembered my little dog! He only died last week. He was run over, and my husband had to shoot him."
"Your husband," he repeated in gloomy tones. "I do not have to refer to my wife. I have never married."
"You did not remain single on my account," she said.
Pierre paused for a moment as if he were trying to resist the temptation to tell her that it was on her account. But the forms of Malagasy maidens floated within the smoke of his cigarette, and forbade him to claim too straight a fidelity.
"If I had ever found the right woman, I suppose I should have married. But the kind of life I was leading demanded the right kind of woman to share it. Ah, Mary, if only you could have shared it! If only...."
He leaned over, and taking her hand from the arm of her chair upon which it was resting he raised it slowly to his lips.
Mary was not so much astonished at herself as she felt she ought to be, as perhaps she would have been if Jemmie had not shown so clearly his indifference to her during these last few months. Pierre could not have been holding her hand like this if Jemmie had come back to dinner.
"Ought you to be taking my hand like this?" she asked.