“Mon Dieu!” said he, “what a lovely face! Where has she come from?”
“What?” said Coigny, “do you not know her? She is from Martinique. They call her the ‘Flower of Martinique’—but surely you have seen her before?”
“I have been away from Paris for some weeks, hunting with Rochefort,” said Camus, his eyes still on the girl.
“Ah! that accounts for it,” said Coigny. “She is a new arrival.”
“Introduce me.”
“Certainly.”
In a moment the introduction was made. Camus’s success with women was due less, perhaps, to his force and personality, than to his knowledge of them. Like Wilkes, he only wanted ten minutes’ start of the handsomest man in town to beat him. With Mademoiselle Fontrailles he was charming, courtly, deferential and graceful.
He knew nothing of Rochefort’s experience with the girl, but he needed no warning, and when the Duc de Soissons came up to claim her as partner, he fancied that he had made a very good impression, as, indeed, he had.
He watched her dancing. If he had made a good impression on her, she had made a deep impression upon him. He watched her with burning eyes, as one might fancy a tiger watching a gazelle, then, turning away, he passed through the crowd to the supper-room.
Here, drinking at a buffet, he met a friend, Monsieur de Duras, a stout gentleman—one of those persons who know everything about everyone and their affairs. Camus questioned him about Mademoiselle Fontrailles, and learned her origin and history. Her father was the chief banker in Martinique. She had come to Paris for her health. Attended by whom?