Their conversation was of trifles, yet intimate trifles. The general talk buzzed all round them. Neither made any effort to arrest it. To Duncombe she seemed simply the image he had created and worshipped suddenly come to life. That it was not in fact her picture went for nothing. There was no infidelity. The girl who had existed in his dreams was here. It was for her that he had departed from the even tenor of his ways, for her he had searched in Paris, for her he had braved the horrors of that unhappy week. Already he felt that she belonged to him, and in a vague sort of way she, too, seemed to be letting herself drift, to be giving color to his unconscious assumption by her lowered tone, by the light in her eyes which answered his, by all those little nameless trifles which go to the sealing of unwritten compacts.
Once her manner changed. Her father, who was on the opposite side of the table a little way off, leaned forward and addressed her.
"Say, Sybil, where did we stay in Paris? I've forgotten the name of the place."
"L'hôtel d'Athènes," she answered, and at once resumed her conversation with Duncombe.
But somehow the thread was broken. Duncombe found himself watching the little gray man opposite, who ate and drank so sparingly, who talked only when he was spoken to, and yet who seemed to be taking a keen but covert interest in everything that went on about him. Her father! There was no likeness, no shadow of a likeness. Yet Duncombe felt almost a personal interest in him. They would know one another better some day, he felt.
"So you've been in Paris lately?" he asked her suddenly.
She nodded.
"For a few days."
"I arrived from there barely a week ago," he remarked.
"I hate the place!" she answered. "Talk of something else."