"What's the row?"
"Oh, nothing, I got tired of it."
"That's not true," he said, looking into her eyes, which had dimmed.
"Cut it out then, I don't care to talk about it."
"I bet he didn't treat you square. He's too much of a bounder."
At this her face flamed and she stopped suddenly on the sidewalk,
drawing herself away from him. "Don't," she pleaded, "don't, please, or
I can't go with you--"
He saw now what was in her eyes and put his hand into her arm again.
"Come along, little girl, I won't worry you," he said gently. And they
walked on.
She recovered her spirits in a few moments, but the sparkling of her
talk was like the waves on the surface of an invisible current sweeping
her toward him. It was too evident for him, used as he was to women, not
to notice it. She was a little embarrassed, and such self-consciousness
sat strangely on her face. Behind that flashing smile and the quick
glances of her eye something slumbered, an emotion alien to such
debonair moods as was her wont to express, and as foreign to the deeper
secret feelings she concealed. Her eyes had darkened to a deeper brown,
the iris almost as dark as the pupils. Cayley did, as she had said,
fascinate her. Whether the charm was most physical or mental it would
be hard to say, but her demeanor showed that it partook of both
elements. She gave herself up to it.
He began to play upon her. He took her arm affectionately, and the tips
of his fingers rested upon the little, cool circle of her wrist above
her gloves. She did not remove his hand. His eyes sought hers again
and again, vanquishing them with his meaning glances. Her pulse beat
faster. She talked excitedly. A soft wave of color swept up from her
neck.
"Suppose we dine at the 'Poodle Dog'?" he suggested.
"I'm game," she replied; "I like a quiet place where there's no music."
"We can get a room up-stairs where we won't be interrupted."
"Anywhere for mine. I've got a blue bean and I'd like to be cheered
up."
She was cheered up to an unwonted pitch by the time the dinner was over.
As she sat, flushed, mettlesome with wine, thrilling to his advances, he
plied her artfully, and she responded with less and less discretion.
She could not conceal her impulse towards him.
"Do you think I'm pretty?" she asked, her eyes burning.
"Indeed you are--you're beautiful!" he said, his hand resting on hers.
"But I don't want to be beautiful--that's what you are when you're queer
and woozly--like the girls Maxim paints," she pouted. "They're awful
frights--they're never pretty. I want to be just pretty, not handsome
or good-looking or anything apologetic like that--that's what men call a
girl when she can't make good with her profile. You've got to tell me
I'm pretty, Blan, or I won't be satisfied."
"You certainly are pretty," he laughed, as he filled her glass.
"That makes me almost happy again," she mused. "Let's forget everything
and everybody else in the world. It's funny how I've been thinking
about you and wondering if I'd ever see you again. I had a good mind to
put a personal in the _Chronicle_. It seemed to me as if I simply had
to see you, all this week. Wasn't it funny at Carminetti's? I guess I
was struck by lightning that time. You certainly did wireless me. It's
fierce to own up to it, Blan, but I like you. I've stood men off ever
since I was old enough to know what they wanted, but you've got me
hypnotized. How did you do it?" She laughed restlessly.
"Why, if I hadn't thought you were a little too thick with Granthope, I
would have looked you up before."
"I haven't been there for a week. The wide, wide world for mine, now."
"That's pretty tough, to fire you after you'd been with him for two
years, isn't it?"
"I don't want to talk about that, really, Blan; it's all right."
He poured out another glass of champagne for her and she drank it
excitedly. Cayley still caressed her free hand, but his eyes were not
upon her; he was thinking intently. She took his head in her two hands
and turned it gently in her direction.
"There! _That's_ where you want to look. Here is Fancy, Blan, right
here."
"I see you. I was only thinking--do you know, you look like the
pictures of Cleopatra?" he suggested. "Did you ever hear of Cleopatra,
Fancy?"