“To write a report for your syndicate.” Mame’s voice had something terribly like a sneer in it.
The girl laughed and shook her head. “This binge is a bit too much of a family affair.”
“Oh!” said Mame inadequately. It was not easy to call the bluff of this girl.
While Mame, who had now begun to feel vindictive, was seriously considering the best means of letting this short-sport know that she was not quite such a sucker as she seemed, a young man who had just risen from an adjacent table came stalking her stealthily from behind. He patted her on the shoulder.
“Hulloa, Bill!” The tone was very light and whimsical. “I didn’t see the cat bring you in.”
Mame listened keenly for Bill’s answer. But it amounted to nothing beyond a cheery laugh. All the same, she was mightily interested in Bill.
He was dressed to beat the band: braided morning coat, white spats, the last word in neckties. Evidently a regular fellow. He was one of those upstanding, handsome boys in which the West End of London seems to abound. Perhaps he was twenty-seven, or a little less, with a skin naturally fair burnt to a most attractive shade of copper by the suns of foreign climes. There was something so wholesome and clean, so manly and trim about Bill, that even a girl of sense might be expected to fall in love with him on sight. Mame was not in a position to think of love. But he looked such a white man, and so faultless in his grace that even as it was she could not repress a little sigh of envy. Some girls didn’t appreciate their luck in having boys of that sort feeding from the hand.
“Going?” Mame heard him say.
The queen of the four-flushers answered with an unmistakable “Yep” which might have come from the Bowery. She went on to discard her cigarette, to put away her meerschaum holder and then to examine the inside of her purse. “Dammitall!” she said. “No change and I must leave a shilling under the plate for the waiter. Have you one about you, Bill?”
Bill obliged. The girl laid the shilling under her plate and got up from the table. As she did so she turned abruptly to Mame and held out her hand in a most winning manner. “A-rivederci. I have your address. I won’t forget that card. So glad to have met you.”