Flora Sanni wiped her right hand slowly, methodically on her apron.
“Buena sera, Signorina.” She took the gloved hand, dropped it, turned about. Her eyes were steel. She had taken longer to wipe her hands on her apron.
Tom moved in Durthal’s power toward the nearer end of the table.
A young girl shut the door.
“Here you are,” muttered Lagora.
She nodded timidly to her neighbors—maliciously to Dounia Smith, a defensive malice—and sat down beside the Marquese. He drew close his chair. The two began muttering together. Lagora leaned forward. The girl bent back from the thrust of his mood and his body. She was a frail creature—a tissue of harried nerves with great black teeming eyes. Her hand tapped on the plate. She lit a cigarette, inhaled a great gust, emptied Lagora’s wine glass and then blew out the smoke. Her body was draped in a short tight smock of blue hung from her shoulders. Her tiny breasts stood up in it quite clear. Lagora’s brows worked up and down. Her big eyes sharpened and cut him. He looked at her twitching shoulders.
“Hello, Mr. Rennard,” she cried as she passed him. She threw up a diminutive hand. Her breasts bobbed.
“How are you, Lettie?” Tom, taking her hand, had the sense of Lagora smiling with snakish eyes. He passed on.
A lumbering boy got up, nodding and saying no word.