“Why do you think I am lonely, Mademoiselle?” he asked, without smiling.
“Oh, when one talks to one’s self, strikes the table, wastes good wine, the inference is but natural. So, Monsieur is lonely.”
Her lips and eyes, as grave and smileless as his own, puzzled him. An adventure? He looked at some of the other women. Those he could understand, but this one, no. At all times he was willing to smile, yet to draw her out he realized that he must preserve his gravity unbroken. The situation was not usual. His gaze came back to her.
“Is the comparison favorable to me?” she asked.
“It is. What is loneliness?” he demanded cynically.
“Ah, I could tell you,” she answered. “It is the longing to be with the one we love; it is the hate of the wicked things we have done; it is remorse.”
“That echoes of the Ambigu-Comique.” He leaned upon his arms. “What are you doing here?”
“I?”
“Yes. You do not talk like the other girls who come here.”
“Monsieur comes here frequently, then?”