"You are very kind," she said.
He made her an abrupt bow.
"Then I hope you won't snub my efforts by deserting?"
She laughed again.
"No, lieutenant, I will not desert. I am going to help you."
She spoke with a winning and impulsive graciousness that stirred again within him that curious sense of groping in the dark among objects familiar but unrecognisable. Surely he had met this stranger somewhere before—in a crowded thoroughfare, in a train, possibly in a theatre, or even in a church!
She looked at him questioningly as he lingered, and with another bow he turned and left her. Doubtless, when he saw her face he would remember, or realise that he had been mistaken.
VI
Mademoiselle Trèves kept her word, and wherever the fun was at its height she was invariably the centre of it. The shy children crowded about her. She seemed to possess a special charm for them.