He drew the chairs towards them.
“By all means,” he answered courteously. “Your friend does look tired.”
The party arranged itself. Holderness called to a waiter and gave an order.
“My friend and I,” he remarked, indicating Macheson, who was fiercely uncomfortable and struggling hard not to show it, “are disappointed that we could not get stalls. We wanted to see La Guerrero and this wonderful conjurer.”
“The place is full every night,” the girl answered listlessly. “La Guerrero comes on at ten o’clock, you can see her from the front of the promenade easily. You don’t often come here, do you?”
“Not very often,” Holderness answered. “And you?”
“Every night,” the girl answered in a dull tone.
“That must be monotonous,” he said kindly.
“It is,” she admitted.
They talked for a few minutes longer, or rather it was Holderness who mostly talked, and the others who listened. It struck Macheson as curious that his friend should find it so easy to strike the note of their conversation and keep it there, as though without any definite effort he could assume control over even the thoughts of these girls, to whom he talked with such easy courtesy. He told a funny story and they all laughed naturally and heartily. Macheson had an idea that the girls had forgotten for the moment exactly where they were. Something in their faces, something which had almost terrified him at their first coming, had relaxed, if it had not passed wholly away. At the sound of a few bars of music one of them leaned almost eagerly forward.