“No, my dear, I will call on you at three if you wish it so much.”
“That is a rude way to speak.”
“I am not a courtier, my dear. Run away now. I am occupied. I will call on you at three.”
Boo was forced to be content with this compromise; she looked after him as he walked on with his companion, a prime minister.
“He’s made of millions,” she said to her governess, and her little face had a reverential look upon it.
Her mother was at home at three o’clock in the pretty room with its windows opening on to a flower-filled balcony which cost so much in the first hotel in Cannes. She was reading, and Boo, at a table, was dabbling with some water-color paints, when he who was “made of millions” entered, being faithful to his word.
“Your little daughter reminded me that I have been to blame in not earlier doing myself this honor,” he said as he bent over her hand: she thought that he did not look either honored or enthusiastic.
She had a vague sense of hostility to her in him which stimulated her interest and her intentions.
“You owed no duty to two shipwrecked waifs whom you entertained only too amiably,” she said with a charming smile. “I am surprised that you have given us a thought.”
He had scarcely given her a thought, but he could not tell her so.