"Remember a little girl we saw at La Palèze in the summer?"
Lumsden's face altered ever so little.
"Can't say I do very clearly. We saw so many."
"Went rount wit' a kind of fisherman. Artist feller. Eh? ah? Danced, too. Remember now?"
"Oh yes! I do, now. You were professional on the subject of her legs."
"That's the one. Well, she's come to me, my boy."
"Come to you? What the deuce for?"
"What do they all come for?" the Jew asked with sub-acidity. "Money. A lead. A 'shance.'"
"And what did you say, Dolly? Took her on your knee—played uncle—told her that if she was good to her mother you might give her a place in the back row some day if you thought of it."
Dollfus looked at him keenly for a moment. He had a theory that Lumsden remembered the girl better than he pretended; that he had, in fact, spoken to her at La Palèze and been rebuffed.