When Jeanne-Marie was staring in moody silence at the little pickled pearl onion in the bottom of the now-empty cocktail glass, she was aware that someone had sat down beside her. A thrill of surprise and delight went through her body, making her shiver. This was the unexpected, she told herself. She knew it would be a man without looking. Knew it would be a good-looking fellow with the stamp of the man-of-the-world on his features. He could be nothing else.
And so it was.
Then Jeanne-Marie turned around slowly, not knowing if she should smile. When she faced the man now seated at her table, she gave him a cool quizzical look. He was a big man somewhere in his mid-thirties, with a craggy but handsome face and very wide shoulders. He was dressed, Jeanne-Marie decided, in quite good taste but expensively.
He muttered, "Didn't expect you to be so pretty."
Cocktail patter, thought Jeanne-Marie. "That's a very funny way to put a compliment."
The man said, still in hardly more than a whisper, "Fellows looking around. Three or four of them. Act like you know me. A thousand dollars. You're my wife or something like that."
He had already arranged the cocktail glasses on the table so that it looked as if both of them had been drinking. He said, "Well?"
"What did you mean about not expecting—?"
"You. Back of your head was all I saw. A girl, I thought. Obscurity of a couple when they're looking for a single man. But you. You stand out like Niagara Falls in the middle of the Sahara. See what I mean?"
"Thank you," Jeanne-Marie said. "Who is looking for you?"