William, having met his wife, turned and came back with her, the sun shining in their faces. They could be seen much more plainly than they could see. Fanchon had tossed away her cigarette and was looking at her husband, with something in the lift of her small face and the gestures of her quick, nervous hands, suggesting anger.
“She’s wonderfully pretty,” Virginia thought, “but a strange little exaggerated creature—and—and William’s wife!”
She was aware that her own heart was beating heavily, but she held up her head. Meanwhile William came up.
“My wife, Colonel Denbigh. Fanchon, this is Miss Virginia Denbigh. We—we’re old friends,” he added lamely.
Fanchon looked at them with shining eyes. Her beauty—a delicate, captivating, elusive kind of beauty—seemed soft and childlike at the moment. In spite of the flagrant hat and the flagrantly loud stockings and the amazing style of dress, she was dainty, graceful, altogether delightful. And she wanted to please. She smiled at them softly; she spoke very little—in a light, hurrying, childish voice—and she was very deferential, very gentle, to Colonel Denbigh.
“She’s lovely,” Virginia thought generously. “I can’t blame him!” Aloud she gave Fanchon the invitation to sing at the concert. “Caraffi is to play, so you mustn’t think it’s just an ordinary concert,” she explained. “We’d be delighted if you could give us a song—a French song, if you will.”
Fanchon hesitated, she even blushed, and she raised her dark eyes to Virginia’s with that peculiarly engaging wild-fawn look.
“Moi! I’m afraid I don’t sing well enough,” she said deprecatingly.
“She sings beautifully,” William interposed eagerly. He was warmed to the heart by her evident success; he saw that the colonel and Virginia thought her lovely. “Don’t let her off, Virginia!”
The name slipped out with the sound, so subtle and yet so unmistakable, that betrays long and tender intimacy. It slipped out, and William stopped short, reddening to his hair. It was not merely calling a beautiful girl by her Christian name. It was saying a thousand things at once; and he felt it, like a thrill of electricity, running through Fanchon. Besides, Virginia blushed, her eyes meeting his with a sudden appeal, a kind of silent prayer.