The orchestra was at the moment playing that plaintive Hungarian gypsy air, Bela’s Valse Banffy, that sweet, weird song of the Tziganes which one hears everywhere along the Danube from Vienna to Belgrade.
“Look here, Charlie,” said the girl, much perturbed at what she had recognized in his handsome countenance. “Tell me, Old Thing, what’s the matter?”
“Matter—why, nothing!” he replied, laughing. “I was only thinking.” And he looked around upon the smart crowd of Parisians who were laughing and chatting.
“Of what?”
He hesitated for a second. In that hesitation the girl who loved him so fondly, and who preferred him to old Drumone’s son and a title, realized that he had some heavy weight upon his mind, and quickly she resolved to learn it, and try to bear the burden with him.
Since her return from China, with all its Asiatic mysteries, its amusements, and its quaint Eastern life, she had had what she declared to be a “topping” time in London. Her beauty was remarked everywhere and her sweet charm of manner appealed to all. Her mother, who had returned from her exile in the Far East, went everywhere, while her father, a hard, austere Colonial official who had browsed upon reports, and regarded all natives of any nationality or culture as mere “blacks,” was one of those men who had never been able to assimilate his own views with those of the nation to which he had been sent as British representative. He was a hide-bound official, a man who despised any colored race, and treated all natives with stern and unrelenting hand. Indeed, the Colonial Office had discovered him to be a square peg in a round hole, and at Whitehall they were relieved when he went into honorable retirement.
“Do tell me what’s the matter, dear,” whispered the girl across the table, hoping that the pair seated near them did not know English.
“The matter! Why, nothing,” again laughed the handsome young man. “Have a liqueur,” and he ordered two from the waiter. “I can’t think what you’ve got into your head to-night regarding me, Peggy. I was only reflecting for a few seconds—on some business.”
“Grave business—it seems.”
“Not at all. But we men who have to earn our living by business have to think overnight what we are to do on the morrow,” he said airily, as he handed his cigarette-case to her and then lit the one she took.