“Good evening, Mademoiselle,” he said, politely lifting his hat.
She straightened haughtily. “Monsieur,” she said, resentment, consternation and indignation struggling to predominate in her tones, “I did not give you permission to sit down. You are impertinent!”
“O, no,” Maurice declared. “I am not impertinent. I am lonesome. In all Bleiberg I haven't a soul to talk to, excepting the hotel waiters, and they are uninteresting. Grant me the privilege of conversing with you for a moment. We shall never meet again; and I should not know you if we did. Whether you are old or young, plain or beautiful, it matters not. My only wish is to talk to a woman, to hear a woman's voice.”
“Shall I call a gendarme, Monsieur, and have him search for your nurse?” The attitude which accompanied these words was anything but assuring.
He, however, evinced no alarm. He even laughed. “That was good! We shall get along finely, I am sure.”
“Monsieur,” she said, rising, “I repeat that I do not desire your company, nor to remain in the presence of your unspeakable effrontery.”
“I beseech you!” implored Maurice, also rising. “I am a foreigner, lonesome, unhappy, thousands of miles from home—”
“You are English?” suddenly. She stood with the knuckle of her forefinger on her lips as if meditating. She sat down.
Maurice, greatly surprised, also sat down.
“English?” he repeated. His thought was: “What the deuce! This is the third time I have been asked that. Who is this gay Lothario the women seem to be expecting?” To her he continued: “And why do you ask me that?”