From the steps of the apartment-house they hailed a hansom, and drove through the winking night to the Claremont. “‘So, honey, jest play in your own backyard,” she sang. When she found that she couldn’t intimidate him, she started on another fragment, filling in the gaps with humming when she forgot the words:
“Oh, you beautiful girl,
What a beautiful girl you are!
You’ve made my dreams come true to me——”
“Sounds as though I were praising myself, doesn’t it? Don’t come so near, Meester Deek; every time you hug me you carry away so much of my little white foxes. ‘Beware of the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the something or other.’ Didn’t some one once say that? I wish you’d beware; soon there won’t be any fur left.”
While she went to the lady’s room to see whether her appearance had suffered under his kisses, he engaged a table in a corner, overlooking the Hudson.
Towards the end of the meal, when she was finishing an ice and he was lighting a cigar, a silence fell between them. She sat back with her eyes partly closed and her body relaxed. Up to that moment she had been daringly vivacious. He had learnt to fear her high spirits and fits of niceness. They came in gusts; they always had to be paid for with periods of languor.
“What are you thinking?” he asked. “Something sad, I’ll warrant.”
“Fluffy.” She glanced across at him, appealing for his patience.
“How is she?” He tried to humor her with a display of interest