In front of the window was a balcony, and, lightly clad as she was, the girl went out upon it and with an impulsive gesture stretched out her arms to where the Lamp of the night, depended from a little drift of fleecy-white and amber-coloured clouds, swung over Paris.
"O moon," she said, "dear, round, red moon, I am going to be good! I really, really am. I am going to turn over a new leaf; I am going...."
There was a sharp whirr, hard, metallic, and insistent, from the room behind.
The telephone bell was ringing.
Peggy started—the world called her back. In her mind, as it were, she put down her good resolutions on the balcony and hurried in to see who had rung her up.
She fluttered up to the telephone, caught the receiver to her ear, and spoke breathlessly:
"Well, who is it? What? Yes. Who is it? Oh! Where are you? Chalons! You have arrived, then? What?"
A voice, not over the telephone wire, but behind her and in the room, came to Peggy's disengaged ear.
She started violently and turned round as if upon a pivot.
She saw standing before her a slim, tall, clean-shaved man, anywhere between thirty and forty. He was in evening clothes—that is to say, he wore a dinner jacket and black tie. His hair was dark and curly and grew low upon his forehead; his eyebrows were beautifully pencilled; and below them two shrewd, mocking, and yet somehow simple and merry eyes of a brilliant grey looked out upon Mrs. Admaston. The nose was aquiline; the lips, a trifle full, were nevertheless beautifully shaped. They were parted now in a smile.