"What do you say," he suggested abruptly, "to coming with me for the afternoon? Let's go on the top of a tram and ride off somewhere."
He rose, paid the man who came for his luncheon (the girl's score had already been settled), and stood waiting. She fingered the tapes of her closed portfolio, her lips still trembled. The sunlight was full on her, shining on her hair, on her old worn cape, on the worn felt hat, on the little figure which had been so full of courage and of dreams. Then she looked up at Antony and rose.
"I will go," she said, and he picked up the portfolio, tucked it under his arm, and they walked out together, through the smoky larger room where part of the lunchers were joining in the chorus of the song the musicians played. And this little handful of the Latin Quarter saw the two pass out together, as two pass together often from those Bohemian refuges. Some one, as the door opened and shut on Antony and the girl, cried: "Vive l'amour!"
CHAPTER XII
On the way out to Versailles from the top of the tram, lifted high above Paris and the river, alongside of the vulgar head, alongside of the strange little English girl, Fairfax listened to the outpouring of her heart. She took his interest for granted. With an appreciative understanding of human nature, and as though she had been bearing a burden for years which she had never let slip, she rested it now, and her blue eyes on his, her hands in the old woollen gloves, which she had slipped on before they started, clasped in her lap, she talked to Fairfax. By the time the tram stopped before the Palace of Versailles, he had heard her story. She was the daughter of an Irish clergyman. Nora Scarlet was her name.
Nora and Molly!
But they were very different. This girl was as gay as a lark. She laughed frankly aloud, musically, and put her hand on his with a free "camaraderie." She made sparkling little faces at him and called him softly, "Ami."
"My name is Nora, Nora Scarlet, but I don't want you to tell me your name until the end of the day, please. It is just a silly idea, but I will call you 'Ami.' I daresay it is a great name you have got, and I would rather feel that I don't want to know it too soon."