Several bottles were standing on the table. Our companion, having leisurely prepared a mayonnaise, set to munching the lobster with great relish, showing his white teeth in a grin.—Gina drank, but was mute.—I babbled incessantly, endeavouring to pass for a cocotte. We were a puzzle to the young man nevertheless, and his behaviour towards us was lacking in assurance.
“Do you know, Madame,” he at last blurted out, addressing me, “it will be better fun if we make a quartette.... I have an acquaintance in the saloon here: a capital fellow he is.”
Then, turning to Gina: “You also, Madame,” he said, “should have a little diversion.”
I protested very strongly.
“Not the least need for him; let him stay where he is. You are what we want.”
I held him back, putting my hands upon his shoulders, and my face close to the animal face of that unknown man.
He smiled, much flattered: his white teeth gleamed.
“We shall not keep you long, if you wish to leave us. But for the present, you have to stay with us.”
Some one—who could it be?—filled my liqueur-glass with cognac again and again. Presently, a crimson blood-red smoke began to float from corner to corner of the small cabinet, papered with red and gold, and filled with the sound of his loud voice and the reek of tobacco. All round me, everything was afire and aflame.
He was drawing near; in every limb of mine I felt his approach. His jaws, chewing still, though his supper was over; his tiny eyes, to which expectancy gave a phosphorescent glow; and the hot fulsome breath from his gaping chops, embellished with splendidly shining fangs and incisors; and that blond upstanding moustache of his:—I had all these close to my face. He was unsteadily leaning over, tilting his chair towards the sofa, touching and fingering the gauze trimming of my bodice, and seeking my lips with his.