“But you really are tantalizing to-night, my dear boy,” she said. “I don’t understand you at all.”
“Ah! you will before long. Let’s go out into the lounge,” he suggested. “It’s growing late.”
So, having drained their two glasses of triple sec, they passed out into the big palm-lounge, which is so popular with the Parisians after the play.
Peggy and her parents had come to Paris in mid-December to do some shopping. Before she had been exiled to China, Lady Urquhart’s habit was to go to Paris twice each year to buy her hats and gowns, for she was always elegantly dressed, and she took care that her daughter should dress equally well.
Indeed, the gown worn by Peggy that night was one of Worth’s latest creations, and her cloak was an expensive one of the newest mode. They were staying at the Continental when Charlie, who had some business in Paris on behalf of his firm, had run over for three days really to meet in secret the girl he loved. That night Peggy had excused herself to her mother, saying that she was going out to Neuilly to dine with an old schoolfellow—a little matter she had arranged with the latter—but instead, she had met Charlie at Voisin’s, and they had been to the theater together.
Peggy, amid the exuberant atmosphere of Paris with its lights, movement and gaiety—the old Paris just as it was before the war—naturally expected her lover to be gay and irresponsible as she herself felt. Instead, he seemed gloomy and apprehensive. Therefore the girl was disappointed. She thought a good deal, but said little.
Though the distance between the Volnay and the Rue de Rivoli was not great, Charlie ordered a taxi, and on the way she sat locked in his strong arms, her lips smothered with his hot, passionate kisses, until they parted.
Little did she dream, however, the bitterness in her lover’s heart.
Next morning at eleven o’clock, as Peggy was coming up the Avenue de l’Opéra, she passed the Brasserie de la Paix, that popular café on the left-hand side of the broad thoroughfare, the place where the Parisian gets such exquisite dishes at fair prices. Charlie was seated in the window, as they had arranged, and on seeing her, he dashed out and joined her.