"Of course. But," he added in a dismal tone, "most of the assistants I have seen are abysmally stupid. They are dummies. They give nothing of themselves, for the performer to act up to."
"In fact," said Elodie, trying hard to steady her voice, "you want someone entirely in sympathy with you, who can meet you half-way--like Prépimpin."
"Precisely," said Andrew. "But where can I find a human Prépimpin?"
She abandoned knife and fork and, with both arms resting on the table, looked across at him, and it suddenly struck him that her great dark eyes, intelligent and submissive, were very much like the eyes of Prépimpin. And so, womanlike, she conveyed the Idea from her brain to his.
He said very thoughtfully, "I wonder--"
"What?"
"What have you done on the stage? What can you do? Tell me. Unfortunately I have never seen you."
She could sing--not well now, because her voice had suffered--but still she sang true. She had a musical ear. She could accompany anyone on the piano, pas trop mal. She could dance. Oh, to that she owed her first engagement. She had also learned to play the castagnettes and the tambourine, à l'Espagnole. And she was accustomed to discipline.... As she proceeded with the unexciting catalogue of her accomplishments she lost self-control, and her eyes burned and her lips quivered and her voice shook in unison with the beatings of a desperately anxious heart. Our Andrew, although an artist dead set on perfection and a shrewd man of business, was young, pitiful and generous. The pleading dog's look in Elodie's eyes was too much for him. He felt powerless to resist. His brain worked swiftly, devising all kinds of artistic possibilities. Besides, was not Fate accomplishing itself by presenting this solution of both their difficulties?
"I wonder whether you would care to try the experiment?"
With an effort of feminine duplicity she put on a puzzled and ingenuous expression.