“Oh, Jim, you’re absolutely horrid! As if my friends believed in such disgusting ideas!”
“They do––some of ’em.”
“They don’t!”
“Well, then, I do!” he announced so gravely that she had to look at him closely in the rather dim lamplight to see whether he was jesting.
She walked to the top of the staircase with him; let him take her into his arms; submitted to his kiss. Always a little confused by his demonstrations, nevertheless her hand retained his for a second longer, as though shyly reluctant to let him go.
“I am so glad you came,” she said. “Don’t neglect me any more.”
And so he went his way.
His mother discovered him in the library, dressed for dinner. Something, as he rose––his manner of looking at her, perhaps––warned her that they were not perfectly en rapport. Then the subtle, invisible antennæ, exploring caressingly what is so palpable in the heart of man, told her that once more she was to deal with the girl in black.
When his mother was seated, he said: “I didn’t know you had met Palla Dumont, mother.”