The tigress throws in her high speed and passes on until she has reached the entrance to another hotel, and here the scent of prey comes strongly to her nostrils.
A fine-looking man of about fifty years is leaning carelessly against one of the marble columns. He has dined well, anyone can see that, and he is half way into his after-dinner cigar. He is in the ripe stage; the time to ask a favor, or to have a courtesy extended. He is at peace with himself and everybody else, and as the tigress passes by he gets a flash of those black eyes which tell him a story that while it is not new, is always interesting, especially under these circumstances, when he is a thousand miles from home.
There are few men, anyhow, who can stand temptation when they are strangers in a strange city. Man is a companionable sort of a proposition and to be at his best must have society.
This one, who is perhaps the father of an interesting family, and who is above reproach in his native city, and who would become indignant at the thought of a street flirtation, involuntarily straightens himself up, and taking a firmer hold of his cigar, glances after the slowly retreating figure of the lady with the black eyes.
It’s a trim shape, by Jove; and look at that ankle.
A peach.
“Nothing common about her,” he soliloquizes. “Just a nice girl, perhaps, who is a bit lonely, too.”
And then, at that particular moment, the “nice girl,” who has been sauntering very slowly, turns around and looking directly at him, smiles.
A woman’s smile.
Cast off your lines, my boy, and on your way, for the magnetism of that smile has you lashed to the mast, but you don’t know it yet. What you have in your mind is that you’ll just take a little walk and have a little talk, just to fill in a few lonely hours, you know.