Winifred did not want to come along, but Mrs. Neff did not intend to leave the Senator in her clutches. She ran her arm through Winifred's and dragged her away.
Then Tait took Forbes by the arm and spoke with a curious sick thickness: "Let's get out into the air a minute."
Forbes was alarmed by his tone and by the prominence of the veins about his forehead and throat. They walked into the garden filled with soft lantern lights like luminous flowers, the moon over all and the strangely zestful air of Paris like an intoxicant. The orchestra in the garden was just finishing a tune, and the orchestra in the house was just beginning an American tango played with a marked French accent. They found a marble seat in a green niche where it was yet too early for flirts to be found.
"Well, Harvey, she's here—that damned woman—and her toy husband."
Forbes smarted under the hatred the man he loved bore for the woman he loved, and when the Ambassador, trying to be cheerful, spoke hopefully, "But, then, that flame has smoldered out, hasn't it?" Forbes only sighed:
"Oh, I think so—I hope so!"
"What's this? What's this?" Tait gasped. "Are you still at her mercy—her mercy?"
Forbes made a gesture of distress: "I don't know! The thought of her has never left me. The sight of her again hurts like the bullet I got in that first brush with the Spanish. And she doesn't look happy. There was a shadow over her."
"There ought to be," Tait grumbled. "She's a cold-blooded, mercenary, calculating—"
"Don't!" Forbes pleaded, but the old man raged on.