She held out an ungloved hand to him as he stepped up to the automobile. Having gained her ends, she was disposed to be merciful.
"This is very kind of you, Sir Julien," she murmured. "I really was most anxious to have you visit me. Will you step in, please, and drive with me a little way? One converses so easily and it would perhaps amuse you more than to sit in my rooms."
"You are very thoughtful," Julien replied. "I will come, with pleasure, if I may."
He seated himself by her side.
"You must put your stick and gloves in the rack there," she continued, "and make yourself quite comfortable. We drive a short distance into the country, if you do not mind."
"I am entirely at your service," he answered.
He was firmly determined to remain wholly unimpressed by whatever she said or did, yet, even in those first few moments, the sweetness of her voice and the delicate correctness of her English sounded like music to him. There was a suspicion of accent, too, which puzzled him.
"We are not altogether strangers, you know," she went on. "I have seen you before several times. I think the last time that you were in Paris you sat in a box at Auteuil with some friends of mine."
Somehow or other, he was conscious of a certain embarrassment. He was not at his best with this woman, and he found it hard, almost impossible, to escape from commonplaces.
"It was my misfortune that I did not see you," he remarked. "My visit was rather a momentous one. I dare say I paid less attention than usual to my surroundings."