And then, just as though some secret wireless had acquainted him of her discomfort, he held out his hand with a sudden smile that softened the harsh lines of his face extraordinarily.
“Thank you,” he said quietly. “When you go to bed to-night you’ll be able to feel you’ve done your ‘kind deed’ for to-day.”
Half reluctantly, yet unable to do otherwise, Ann laid her hand in the one he held out to her. His strong fingers closed round it possessively and she was aware of a queer, breathless feeling of captivity. She drew her hand sharply away.
“Is it a ‘kind deed’?” she asked lightly, for the sake of saying something—anything—which should break the tension of the silence which had followed.
“Is it not? To bestow a charming half-hour of your companionship on the loneliest person in Montricheux? Oh, I think so.”
“You didn’t look at all lonely this afternoon,” flashed back Ann, remembering the pretty woman with whom she had seen him driving.
“At the Battle of Flowers, you mean? No.” He turned the conversation adroitly. “But I only won third prize, so I’m still in need of sympathy. Taking the third prize is rather my métier in life.”
“Perhaps it’s all you deserve,” she suggested unkindly. “Anyway, you’ve nothing to grumble at. We didn’t win anything. We weren’t elaborately enough decorated to compete.”
“Yet you looked as if you were enjoying it all,” he hazarded. “Did you?”
“Yes, of course I did. Didn’t you?”