“Ah, yes, I know, he speaks of you with great affection. He will be up from Virginia in a day or two, will he not?”
“Not before I am off. I go to New Orleans on important business and from there to California, but I shall stay with him here on my return. Ah! you cannot dream what he has been to me,” he cried with Gallic enthusiasm, “he—and one other.”
“Will you come and tell me about it later, Monsieur, when you have finished your cigars?” she said softly, picking up her gloves and giving the signal to rise.
“Madame is very good,” he murmured, bowing low as he stood aside for her to pass.
Left together, the three men drew near and by a common interest caused Grémond to talk of his explorations for fully half an hour, which time was all too short to his listeners, who were greatly interested in the man as well as in what he had done. Though they had just met him within the week he was well known to them through Renshawe, a warm friend of Kenneth and the Lennoxes and the half hour over their cigars would unquestionably have lengthened out indefinitely had the women not been waiting for them in the drawing-room.
The party had expected to go to the opera together, but when the men rejoined the women they found a change of plan, Miss Marston having secretly confided to Mrs. Lennox that she had been “on the go” so steadily for weeks that it would be bliss to keep still, and “Couldn’t we all spend the evening here instead?” Pretty, disdainful Miss Davis, seeing in this suggestion possibilities of a prolonged tête-à-tête with Kenneth Landor, was enthusiastic in seconding it; while Mrs. Lennox acquiesced gladly—she had put in an exhausting day at various charitable organizations and was more tired than she cared to admit. As for the men, they were loud in their acclamations of delight over what Mr. Lennox called “the joy of a home evening.” Accordingly they left the formal drawing-room and repaired to Mrs. Lennox’s sanctum, a unique room finished in ebony, the dark wood relieved from somberness by a deep frieze of Pompeiian figures done in red, while bits of this vivid color were everywhere conspicuous in the furnishing. In all its appointments it showed the touch of a strong individuality and expressed in its way the æsthetic side of Mrs. Lennox’s nature. It had also what in a woman’s room made it distinctive—space. Mrs. Lennox was a person who liked free scope for her body as well as her mind.
The guests, therefore, distributed themselves about comfortably and Miss Davis found herself exercising her fascinations upon the distinguished foreigner, who encouraged her by undisguised admiration, which indeed he had given her throughout dinner by glances meant to convey what the distance of the table between them made it impossible to say. But the paying of excessive compliments to a girl like Miss Davis, who cares only for that sort of thing from the masculine sex, sometimes palls and Grémond was just thinking a bit longingly of his charming hostess when that individual approached them.
“Miss Davis,” she said, “Mr. Landor has been proposing a game of billiards. He wants you to help him beat Miss Marston and my husband—they have already begun to play, I believe. Will you join them?”
“Do Miss Davis, will you?” urged Kenneth, who always enjoyed the game.
Miss Davis looked at him and rose by way of answer. She had long ago discovered that her eyes did considerable execution. Then with a glance at Grémond which said that he too might follow her, she went with Kenneth across the hall into the billiard room.