“I do not understand you very well, sir. You speak in riddles. I am a Russian, you an American. I beg you use some other dialect than Parisian ‘blague’; be more explicit.”
With a quick glance, Tom Bob made sure there was no listener to pay heed to his talk with the fascinating princess. The Neapolitan singers had been succeeded by a bevy of quaint step-dancers, whom all the company was attentively watching.
Reassured on this point, Tom Bob, intoxicated perhaps by the beauty of the night, perhaps crazed by Sonia Danidoff’s loveliness, charmed no doubt by the sympathy she had never ceased to lavish on him throughout this after-dinner talk, resolved to burn his boats:
“You do not understand, madam,” he resumed, “you surprise me! I imagine you have not failed to notice the marked attentions, to say no more, paid you by our common friend, M. Ascott? Oh! never deny it, madam! To-night, as indeed he does habitually, M. Ascott has made the most determined efforts to win your favour.”
There was almost a touch of mockery in the words, and Sonia Danidoff was too quick-witted not to catch the other’s drift.
“It would seem,” she said, “these efforts do not strike you, sir, as having been crowned with success! you think my conquest is not an accomplished fact yet?”
“I do not think, madam ... I hope.”
And with these two little words which meant so much, which were equivalent to the most formal of declarations, Tom Bob, like a well-advised suitor, aware that a man must never demand an answer but always wait till it is offered, made his bow to the princess and walked away.
“I am going to call your carriage,” he said.
The company was, in fact, rising from table; it was growing very chilly and the time was come to think of quitting the Bois for the city. Everywhere the guests were exchanging farewells, then the women of fashion, escorted by their cavaliere servente, made for their elegant broughams or sumptuous automobiles. All were leaving, and leaving all at the same time, to return together as far as the barrier of the Porte Dauphine, when the final adieux would be exchanged.