“Let us eat first and talk afterwards,” he said. “You must be hungry.”
“I’m starving!” she laughed.
He had a car waiting for her, and whisked her off to a little street leading from the Boulevard des Italiens, where one of the best restaurants in Paris is situated. The girl looked about her with an approving air. The gaiety and luxury of the place appealed to her.
“My word!” she said enviously; “do you come to lunch here every day?”
“Do you know this place?” he asked.
“I’ve seen it,” she admitted, “but a three-franc dinner at Duval’s has been my limit so far.”
She told him how she had come to the Continent as a dancer, and had “starred” in a tiny little cabaret in Montmartre as one of the “dashing Sisters Jones,” before she had been seen by the impresario who was recruiting material for his tour through the Levant.
Cartwright judged her to be nineteen, knew her to be extremely pretty, and guessed that, under certain conditions, she would be presentable even to the best of the circles in which he moved. He wondered, with a grim smile, what Maxell, that austere and fastidious man, would say if he knew that the girl was with him in Paris. Would Maxell accept her? He thought not. Maxell was a thought straitlaced and in some ways was a bore. But Maxell was necessary. He was a brilliant lawyer, and moreover stood well with the Government, and there might come a time when Maxell would be immensely useful. He could well afford to give the lawyer a slice of the pickings he intended making, because Maxell’s wants were few and his ambitions on the modest side.
Cartwright thought in millions. Maxell was a five-figure man. If all went well with Cartwright’s scheme, undoubtedly he could well afford the five figures.
“What happened to your friend?” asked the girl, as though divining his thoughts: “The man you told me I was to keep away from. Why didn’t you want him to see me?”