She laughed and blushed, detaching from her corsage a rosebud.
"Accept, Monsieur, the prize for eloquence and for impudence!" And she extended the rosebud to Warner.
He took it, lifted it to his lips, looking smilingly at her, and listening with all the concentration he could summon to the murmuring conversation at the neighboring table.
Only a word or two he could catch—perhaps merely a guess at—"Patron," and "nine o'clock," and "cellar"—at least he imagined he could distinguish these words. And all the time he was up to his ears in a breezy flirtation with a girl very willing, very adept, and perfectly capable of appreciating her own desirability as well as the good points of any casual suitor whom Heaven might strand upon her little, isolated island for an hour or two.
Being French, she was clever and amusing and sufficiently grateful to the gods for this bit of masculine flotsam which had drifted her way.
"There are boats," she said, "and the evening will be beautiful." Having made this clear to him, she smiled and let matters shape their course.
"What pleasure is a boat and a beautiful night to me," he said, "if nobody shares both with me?"
"Alas, Monsieur, have you no pretty little friend who could explain to you the planets on a summer night?"
"Alas, Mademoiselle!"
"What a pity.... Because I have studied astronomy a little. And I recommend it to you as a diversion. They are so high, so unattainable, the stars! It is well for a young man to learn what is attainable, and then to address himself to its pursuit. What do you think, Monsieur?"