She laughed. “I have eyes. Besides, I know all about you—first from our friend Corinna Hastings, and lately from my little hostess over the way.”
He flushed, charmed by the deep music of her voice and delighted at being recognised by her not only as an individual (for she radiated an attraction which had caused him to hate the conventional impersonality of waiterdom) but as a member more or less of her own social class. He paused, plate of crumbs in one hand and napkin in the other.
“Do you know Corinna Hastings?”
“Evidently. How else could she have told me of your romantic doings?” she replied laughingly, and Martin flushed deeper, conscious of an idiot question.
He set the apples and little white grapes before her. “I ought to have asked you,” said he, “how Miss Hastings came to talk to you about me?”
“She came on the train from Brantôme and rang my bell in Paris. She kept me up talking till four o’clock in the morning—not of you all the time. Don’t imagine it. You were just interestingly incidental.”
“Garçon,” cried a voice from the centre table.
“Bien, m’sieur.”
Martin tucked his napkin under his arm and turned away, followed by Lucilla’s humorous glance.
“L’addition!”