“It is all right, mamma,” laughed Andromache, behind them. “We were pushed off the pavement, and had to let some people pass.”
And then she glanced roguishly at Rudolph, and another rivet in the chain of intimacy was added by a sense of peril and crime shared between them.
“Very well, Andromache. You will stay with me now, and Miltiades will bring back Monsieur Ehrenstein to drink coffee with us later.”
The impenitent ruffian, who had endangered her daughter’s reputation, took his dismissal gaily enough; bowed low and smiled delightfully upon both ladies as he took the arm of the stately and stalwart Miltiades, and stood for them to pass:
“Je crois c’est assez,” said Miltiades, with a comprehensive glance up and down the noisy street, which had the bad taste not to show the piquant face of Miss Mary Perpignani.
Rudolph, to whom the Captain’s limited vocabulary in French was a source of perpetual amusement, intimated his concurrence with this opinion, whereupon they ruthlessly beat their way down to Constitution Square.
“Voulez-vous un café et cigarette?” asked the Captain, touching the back of a chair, and the droll anxiety he displayed in uttering this simple demand sent Rudolph into an explosion of appreciative mirth.
“Non, non, chez-vous, j’aime mieux,” said Rudolph, indistinctly, between gasps of laughter.
Miltiades frowned, and held his head high with a proud, hurt air. His French might be imperfect and his enunciation laborious, but he was not the less for that a hero. By the grave of Hercules! was he to be flouted and mocked by a young jackanapes from Austria?
“Mais, mon ami, il ne faut pas se fâcher,” cried Rudolph, full of remorse and apprehension. “Ah, si vous saviez tout,” he added, and forced Miltiades to stop and shake hands with him.