“All right, old chap! Wait a minute till I get my shirt on. There’s some sherry and bitters on the sideboard.”
Presently he went forward with his fingers at his collar-stud. In the shadow stood a shawl-enfolded figure whom he thought he recognized.
“Oh, it’s you, is it?” he said; “I told the landlady to send you up. If you don’t do the things better I must get some other woman. I believe you purposely wear holes in my underclothing.”
“Indeed, Monsieur,” came the reply in French, “I am most anxious to wash your dirty linen, but, Monsieur Gerard, you give your family almost too much of it.”
“By Jove!” replied Gerard. “I say, Mademoiselle, wait a minute till I—” He disappeared.
Mademoiselle Papotier smiled a supercilious smile. “Ah, que les hommes sont plaisants,” she murmured. “Mauvais plaisants!” she added. But when Gerard returned a few moments later she was boldly agreeable to him, with a smirk round her slightly mustachioed lips.
“To what am I indebted?” began the young officer.
She waved a little deprecatory hand in the neatest of gray gloves.
“A moment!” she said. “Can you not spare me a moment? I am fatigued. May I not repose myself?”