“Good night, Mr. Malloy,” she said, with a smile there was no mistaking. The young man looked after her, astonished and rueful. He was for the moment forgetful of Andrée.
“That’s that,” he said aloud.
Andrée laughed, and he turned quickly; the light of a red-shaded lamp gave a strange lustre to her silver dress; she was sitting in a big chair, with her hands clasped behind her head, and she looked—she looked very unlike a Vincelle, he thought.
“Sit down, if you like,” she said, “and smoke a cigarette before you go.”
He was willing enough to do that.
“I thought I was taking them home,” he observed, “but it seems I wasn’t.”
“Edna’s like that,” said Andrée, smiling. “Misleading.”
He considered that the privilege of pretty girls. He was a chivalrous and rather artless young fellow, with a kind and susceptible heart; he was a little vain and unduly anxious to please; he was what would have been called a “flirt” in Claudine’s day, with all the innocence the word implied. He gratified Andrée’s æsthetic eye; he was faultless, an ornament to the room. He was supple and tall, with a punctilious grace; he had a dark, lean face which might have been too regular in its beauty but for the attractive defects of cheek-bones that were too high and an upper lip a trifle too long. Andrée had long ago put him down as stupid as an owl, and had expressed to her mother her dislike for the way he “hovered” about Edna.
“He’s like a stage lover,” she had said.
But to-night she was tired, and his stupidity was agreeable; moreover she was annoyed at Al and wished to keep this handsome creature sitting here until he returned, to punish him.