"On what?" Despite his control the narrow face upturned to him, above the shimmering gray fur, with its red lips in a mocking line cutting the dead-white of her skin, made his pulses beat faster.
"On yourself." She turned away with a quick, indifferent shrug. Fully aware of her power, she never strained a situation.
"My friend—I'm famished!" She fastened her glove. "Why talk about the little heart when the big rest of one is empty? I thought you were here to take me out to a new restaurant to-night?"
"But it's only seven o'clock." He smiled at the rueful note in her voice. "You can't eat anything yet, can you? Of course we'll start—at once, if you like."
"Good." She clapped her hands like a child. "I'm ver' hungry, really, Pierrot. I slept late and missed lunch."
McTaggart noticed, with amusement, that the question of his own appetite never occurred to the fair speaker. Manlike, a trait which would have aggrieved his sense of mastership in his home, appeared to him as involving no martyrdom in this piquante egoist's hands.
"Greedy child! As a matter of fact, I told my taxi to wait. It's such a nice one, almost new. I thought, perhaps, you'd like a drive?"
"Merci, non." She drew her furs carefully about her shoulders, the gray head of the fox nestling under her little pink ear.
"Lucky beast!" said McTaggart, with a gesture pointing his remark. "Why wasn't I born a fox?"
"Because the English are born sheep!" Her topaz eyes flashed wickedly. "They only ask for a stupid leader—and off they go, baa ... baa ... quite contented—straggling down the same dull path paved with precepts."