"_Eh, bien!_" said a voice at Humphrey's elbow, "she is very good, our little Desirée, _hein_?"
He turned half round in his chair. At first he did not recognize the immaculately clothed young man, with the fair, long hair, who smiled at him, and then he recollected that they had met in the office of _Le Parisien_.
"M. Charnac, isn't it?" Humphrey asked. "I didn't know you at once.... Yes, she's very good. What's her name?"
"Desirée Lebeau," Charnac answered. He looked at Humphrey again, still smiling.
"This is the first time.... I was wandering about.... I just dropped in."
Humphrey noticed that Charnac was not alone. A pretty girl dressed becomingly in black, with a touch of red about her neck, sat by his side.
"Allow me to present a friend, Margot," Charnac said to the girl. "He is an Englishman--a journalist," he added. And to Humphrey he said:
"Mlle. Margot Lebeau. She is the sister of our little Desirée."
"_M'sieu est Anglais_," said the dark-haired girl in a piping voice. "_Ah! que ça doit être interessant d'être Anglais._"
The entertainment was near its end. A dainty figure came from the heavy curtains that hung from each side of the proscenium and hid the entertainers from the audience. Humphrey recognised Desirée, though she had forsaken her stage-costume and wore a simple dark-blue dress, with a black fur boa held carelessly about her shoulders. She came towards them with a smile, stopping on the way, as one or two men, of a better class than the bulk of the audience, hailed her. She bent down to them, and whispered conversations followed. She laughed and slapped the face of one man--an elderly man with a red ribbon in his button-hole. It was a playful slap, just the movement that a kitten makes with its paw when it is playing with long hanging curtains.
Charnac pushed out a chair for her invitingly. She came to them with a smile hovering about her lips, and a look of curious interest in her pale eyes as she saw Humphrey. She shook hands with Charnac, and kissed her sister Margot, and then, with a frank gesture, without any embarrassment, she held out her hand to Humphrey and said:
There was a quality of friendship in her voice; her whole manner suggested a desire to be amiable; she accepted Humphrey as a friend without question, and, as for Charnac, she treated him as if he were one of the family, as a brother. The women in the room stared at the party every few moments, absorbed in the details of Desirée's dress, and the men glanced at her with smiles that irritated Humphrey.
