"So it is!" said Alois, immensely flattered by her unconsciousness of time.
"I want to take these plans with me—to show them to some one."
Alois felt that the "some one" was a man, and a very particular friend—else, she would have spoken the name. "Very well," he said, faintly sullen.
"Don't be disturbed," was her absent reply. "I'll take good care of them." She saw the change in him; but, not thinking of him as a man, but as an intelligence only, she did not grasp the cause. "Thank you so much," she went on, "for being so patient with me. How splendid it must be to have always with one a mind like yours—or Narcisse's. Well, until to-morrow, or next day." And, looking as charming as only a pretty woman with a fortune can look to a man who wants both her and her fortune, she left him desolate.
The "some one" was indeed a man. But he—Armstrong—did not arrive until half an hour after the appointed time. She came into the small salon into which he had been shown, her gloves, hat and wraps on and the big roll of plans under her arm; and no one would have suspected that she had been waiting for him since ten minutes before five and had spent most of the time in primping. "I'm all blown to pieces," she apologized, as she entered. "Have I kept you waiting? I really couldn't help it."
"I just got here," said Armstrong. "I, too, was late—business, as always." Which was true enough; but the whole truth would have been that he forgot the appointment until its very hour. "I'll not keep you long," he continued. "I've got to dress for an early dinner."
She was so disappointed that she did not dare speak, lest she should show her ill humor—and she knew Armstrong detested a bad disposition in a woman. She rang for tea; when the servants had brought it and were gone, she began fussing with her coat. He, preoccupied, did not see her hinted signals until she said, "Please, do help me."
As he drew off the coat there floated to him a delightful perfume, a mingling of feminine and flowers, of freshness and delicacy, a stimulating suggestion of the sensuous refinements which a woman with taste and the means can employ as powerful allies in her siege of man. She looked up at him—her eyes were, save her teeth, her best feature. She just brushed his arm in one of those seemingly unconscious, affectionate-friendly gestures which are intended to be encouraging without being "unwomanly." "How is my friend to-day?" she inquired.
"So-so," replied he, taking her advances at their face value.
"You never come here unless I send for you, and you always have some excuse for going soon."