"Introduce you to Louise?" she queried. "Why?—why do you want to be introduced to her?"
"Oh, I don't know. For no particular reason."
She sat down at the table, opened the book, and turned the leaves.
"Oh well, I daresay I can, if you wish it, and an opportunity occurs—if you're with me some day when I meet her.—Now shall we go on with the JUNGFRAU? We were beginning the third act, I think. Here it is:
Wir waren Herzensbruder, Waffenfreunde,
Fur eine Sache hoben wir den Arm!"
But Maurice did not take the book she handed him across the table.
"Won't you give me a more definite promise than that?"
Madeleine sat back in her chair, and, folding her arms, looked thoughtfully at him.
Only a momentary silence followed his words, but, in this fraction of time, a series of impressions swept through her brain with the continuity of a bird's flight. It was clear to her at once, that what prompted his insistence was not an ordinary curiosity, or a passing whim; in a flash, she understood that here, below the surface, something was at work in him, the existence of which she had not even suspected. She was more than annoyed with herself at her own foolish obtuseness; she had had these experiences before, and then, as now, the object of her interest had invariably been turned aside by the first pretty, silly face that came his way. The main difference was that she had been more than ordinarily drawn to Maurice Guest; and, believing it impossible, in this case, for anyone else to be sharing the field with her, she had over-indulged the hope that he sought her out for herself alone.
She endeavoured to learn more. But this time Maurice was on his guard, and the questions she put, straight though they were, only elicited the response that he had seen Miss Dufrayer shortly after arriving, and had been much struck by her.