They got up and walked out. As they did so they passed a couple at one of the tables on the balcony and a slight exclamation fell from Sonia Turgeinov's lips. For an instant she exhibited real interest, then hastening down the steps, she selected a place some distance aside. A great bunch of flowers was in the center of the table and she moved her chair behind them.
"You see some one you know, gnädige Madam?" asked the observant
Teuton.
"A great many people," she answered.
"There's that American over there who asked for the Yankee piece of music," said the Frenchman, with eyes on the two people Sonia Turgeinov had started at sight of, a moment before. "Mon Dieu! What charm! What beauty!"
"Der Herr Amerikaner?" blurted the surprised Berliner.
"No—diable! His belle companion!"
"Where?" said Sonia Turgeinov, well knowing. A face that her table companion regarded, she, too, saw beyond the flowers. The afternoon sunshine touched the golden hair of her she looked at; the violet eyes shone with delight upon bizarre details: of the scene—the waiters in blouses resembling street "white wings" in American cities, the coachmen outside, big as balloons in their quilted cloaks.
"Der Herr Amerikaner has the passionate eyes of an admirer, a devout lover," murmured the sentimental musician from Berlin.
"Or an American husband!" said Roscius from Odessa.
"Sometimes!" added the Frenchman cynically.