Touched and surprised, the girl stood looking at the older woman in silence.
"May I drive you to your destination?" asked Hélène gently.
"You are very kind…. It is Mr. Burleson's studio—if it won't take you too far out of your way."
By the end of March Valerie had driven with the Countess d'Enver once or twice; and once or twice had been to see her, and had met, in her apartment, men and women who were inclined to make a fuss over her—men like Carrillo and Dennison, and women like Mrs. Hind-Willet and Mrs. Atherstane. It was her unconventional profession that interested them.
To Neville, recounting her experiences, she said with a patient little smile:
"It's rather nice to be liked and to have some kind of a place among people who live in this city. Nobody seems to mind my being a model. Perhaps they have taken merely a passing fancy to me and are exhibiting me to each other as a wild thing just captured and being trained—" She laughed—"but they do it so pleasantly that I don't mind…. And anyway, the Countess d'Enver is genuine; I am sure of that."
"A genuine countess?"
"A genuine woman, sincere, lovable, and kind—I am becoming very fond of her…. Do you mind my abandoning you for an afternoon now and then? Because it is nice to have as a friend a woman older and more experienced."
"Does that mean you're going off with her this afternoon?"
"I was going. But I won't if you feel that I'm deserting you."