By degrees, smoothly, silently, her table swept nearer, nearer, bringing with it her chair, her slender person, her dark, intelligent eyes, so unsmilingly and steadily intent on him.
"--Two years ago--at--the Villa Tresse d'Or--on the Seine.... And we promised to see each other--in the morning----"
"My name is Thessalie Dunois. You mistake me for another."
"No," he said, in a low voice, "I am not mistaken."
Her brown eyes seemed to plunge their clear regard into the depths of his very soul--not in recognition, but in watchful, dangerous defiance.
He began again, still stammering a trifle:
"--In the morning, we were to--to meet--at eleven--near the fountain of Marie de Médicis--unless you do not care to remember----"
At that her gaze altered swiftly, melted into the exquisite relief of recognition. Suspended breath, released, parted her blanched lips; her little guardian heart, relieved of fear, beat more freely.
"I know you now," she murmured. "You are Garret Barres, of the rue d'Eryx.... You _are_ Garry!" A smile already haunted her dark young eyes; colour was returning to lip and cheek. She drew a deep, noiseless breath.
The table where she sat continued to slip past him; the distance between them was widening. She had to turn her head a little to face him.
The girl inclined her head a trifle. A smile curved her lips--lips now vivid but still a little tremulous from the shock of the encounter.
She smiled, drew a deeper breath, looked down at the strawberry on the cloth, looked over her shoulder at him.
"You owe me an explanation," he insisted, leaning forward to span the increasing distance between them.
After a moment, still studying him, she nodded as though the nod answered some silent question of her own:
"My table is more prudent than I. It is running away from an explanation." She fixed her eyes on her tightly clasped hands, as though to concentrate thought. He could see only the back of her head, white neck and lovely dark hair.
Her table was quite a distance away when she turned, leisurely, and looked back at him.
She lifted her delicate brows in demure surprise.
"I've been waiting for you," she said, amiably.
The one-eyed man had never taken his eyes off them.
She had offered him her hand; he had bent over it, seated himself, and they smilingly exchanged the formal banalities of a pleasantly renewed acquaintance.