"Un tour de valse, Mademoiselle?"
"Je vieux bien."
And one of the girls had gone, leaving her just sipped grenadine syrup and seltzer-water. But it had been like some flitting unreality of a dream.
At his blinking recovery the remaining girl laughed again.
"You look like a somnambulist."
He replied: "I beg pardon, Mademoiselle, but I was absorbed in my reflections."
"Black ones--hein? They have made you little infidelities?"
He frowned. "They? Who do you mean--they?"
"Un joli garçon is not absorbed in his reflections"--she mimicked his tone--"unless there is the finger of a petite femme to stir them round and darken them."
"Mademoiselle," said he, seriously. "You are quite mistaken. There's not a woman in the world against whom I have the slightest grudge."