Mademoiselle la Danseuse, seeing him alone, paused at his table on her way through the room.
“Monsieur is triste,” she remarked, “because his friends have departed.”
Macheson shook his head.
“I am off, too, in a few minutes,” he answered.
A waiter with immovable face slipped a note into his hand, under cover of presenting the bill. Macheson read it and glanced across the room. Mademoiselle Flossie was watching him with uplifted eyebrows and expectant smile. Macheson shook his head, slightly but unmistakably. The young lady in blue shrugged her shoulders and pouted.
Mademoiselle la Danseuse was watching him curiously.
“I wonder,” she said softly, “why monsieur comes here.”
“In search of pleasure,” Macheson answered grimly.
She looked at him fixedly, and Macheson, momentarily interested, returned her gaze. Then he saw that underneath the false smile, for a moment laid aside, there was something human in her face.
“Monsieur makes a brave show, but he does not succeed,” she remarked.