Suddenly his musing was rudely broken into by the passing of a truck and the growled warning from its driver to get away from the curb. Brought thus back to the stern world of reality and the commonplace, he gave his cane a vicious twirl and muttered beneath his breath, “Damn it! That’s what I call hard luck”—throwing away his cigarette.
Having given vent to this expletive, he turned and went his way, seeing nothing but that beautiful smiling face which was the center and pivot of his confused mind.
At the Claza, Sana, for that was the name of this strange girl, alighted from the taxi, and after paying and dismissing the driver, stepped quickly into the hotel.
She took the elevator to the eighth floor. But a change had come over her. Her face was pale and she was visibly perturbed, as she went down the corridor.
Her hand sought a door knob, and as she hesitated for an instance, her perturbation seemed to leave her. She entered the room without knocking and as she did so, a middle aged man, François de Rochelle, looked up in surprise and forced a thin smile of welcome to his lips.
His words of greeting, “Sana, you are back again,” must have rung in his own ears with their true bluntness, so he quickly added, “So soon, mon cherie?”
He arose from his chair and walking over to Sana, took her face tenderly in his hands and remarked, rather peevishly, “You are pale, joujou. Did not the weather agree with you? I thought the fresh air blowing over the bridge would do you good. Did you not go there?”
The contented smile faded from Sana’s face and was replaced by one of pitiful sadness as she queried blankly, “Where?”
The far-off stare in the girl’s eyes and her strange attitude gave de Rochelle food for thought that was not of the most pleasant kind.
With a scarcely conscious gesture Sana removed her hat and mechanically walked to the couch where she sat down, to look with a vacant gaze out of the window over Central Park. De Rochelle, pushing aside some papers, sought a seat next to her, and placing his arm about her shoulder, asked in a voice that bespoke his own anxiety, “What is it, mon cherie? What troubles you today? Come, let me feel your pulse.”