Paliser laughed with her. The laughter was a bond. It joined them
however tenuously. It was what he had been driving at. Accustomed to
easy successes, Cassy's atmosphere, with its flavour of standoffishness
and indifference, appealed to this man, who had supped on the facile and
who wanted the difficult. Cassy, he could have sworn, would supply it
and, if he had, he would have sworn very truly.
Meanwhile the muskrat had gone. Dishes less false but equally fair had
followed. Now, with the air of a conjurer, the waiter just showed them
an entremets which he hastened to serve. It was a soufflee.
At it, Cassy, just showing the point of her strawberry tongue, exclaimed
without rancour: "Ma Tamby has thrown us over."