An angry reply rose to my lips at hearing him speak so of Carlotta, but knowing that it would defeat the object of my visit, I restrained myself, and replied ”that she had been living down South during the war, but that I understood she was soon to return to Cuba.”
There was a short silence, and I was wondering how to get at any information in regard to Lulie, when he put up his eye-glass and looked at me again.
”You’ve changed a great deal, Smith. I should never have recognized you without your card.”
It was just the turn I wanted, and I replied:
”I saw you last night at the opera and remembered your face immediately. But, Monte, apropos of beauty, who was the lady you were with? She drew my attention entirely from the stage.”
”Ah!” he said, drawing his eye into the least perceptible wink, ”She was worth a gaze, wasn’t she? I wouldn’t tell every one, but you are a transient visitor: that was La Belle Louise. Half of New York is crazy about her—that is, you know, the b’hoys.”
”Not demi-monde?” I asked, looking knowing.
”It was daring in me, wasn’t it?” he went on, without heeding my remark. ”But she wanted to go and I promised to carry her. Oh! but I shall have to lie about it to the ladies. I can cheat scandal out of the morsel if some fellow who knew her don’t blow on me to his mother, and she let it out to her set. Confound it, though, who cares?”
”Has she many admirers?” I asked.