“Are you alone in Paris, Letty?”
And she said: “Oh, what a bore you are! You’re the most obstinate creature. Well, I am alone, but that has nothing to do with you.”
A glorious light broke over his face; his relief was tremendous.
“Oh, thank God!” he breathed.
“Poniotowsky”—and she said his name with difficulty—“is coming to-night from Carlsbad.”
The boy threw back his bright head and laughed wildly.
“Curse him! The very name makes me want to commit a crime. He will go over my body to you. You hear me, Letty. I mean what I say.”
People had already remarked them as they passed. The actress was too well-known to pass unobserved, but she was indifferent to their curiosity or to the existence of any one but this excited boy.
Blair, who had not opened a paper since he came to Paris, did not know that Letty Lane’s flight from London had created a scandal in the theatrical world, that her manager was suing her, and that to be seen with her driving in the Bois was a conspicuous thing indeed. She thought of it, however.
“I am going to tell the man to drive you to the gate on the other side of the park where it’s quieter, we won’t be stared at, and then I want you to leave me and let me go to the Meurice alone. You must, Dan, you must let me go to the hotel alone.”