"My friend and I are tired," he said. "We are going to look for a seat."
She bowed and they strolled on down the promenade, finding some chairs at the further end. The dresses of the women brushed their feet and the perfume from the clothes was stronger even than the odour from the clouds of tobacco smoke which hung about the place. Macheson, in whom were generations of puritanical impulses, found himself shrinking back in his corner. Holderness turned towards him frowning.
"No superiority, Victor," he said. "These are your fellow-creatures. Don't look at them as though you'd come down from the clouds."
"It isn't that," Macheson answered, "it's a matter of taste."
"Taste! Rot!" Holderness answered. "The factory girl's hat offends my taste, but I don't shrink away from her."
A girl, in passing, stumbled against his foot. Holderness stood up as he apologized.
"I am really very sorry," he said. "No one with feet like mine ought to sit down in a public place. I hope you haven't torn your dress?"
"It really doesn't matter," the girl answered. "I ought to have looked where I was going."
"In which case," Holderness remarked, with a laugh, "you could not have failed to see my feet."
There were two empty chairs at their table. The girl glanced towards them and hesitated.
"Do you mind if we sit down here for a minute," she asked, "my friend and I? We are rather tired."
"By all means," he answered courteously. "Your friend does look tired."
The party arranged itself. Holderness called to a waiter and gave an order.
"My friend and I," he remarked, indicating Macheson, who was fiercely uncomfortable and struggling hard not to show it, "are disappointed that we could not get stalls. We wanted to see La Guerrero and this wonderful conjurer."
"The place is full every night," the girl answered listlessly. "La Guerrero comes on at ten o'clock, you can see her from the front of the promenade easily. You don't often come here, do you?"
"Not very often," Holderness answered. "And you?"
"Every night," the girl answered in a dull tone.
"That must be monotonous," he said kindly.
They talked for a few minutes longer, or rather it was Holderness who mostly talked, and the others who listened. It struck Macheson as curious that his friend should find it so easy to strike the note of their conversation and keep it there, as though without any definite effort he could assume control over even the thoughts of these girls, to whom he talked with such easy courtesy. He told a funny story and they all laughed naturally and heartily. Macheson had an idea that the girls had forgotten for the moment exactly where they were. Something in their faces, something which had almost terrified him at their first coming, had relaxed, if it had not passed wholly away. At the sound of a few bars of music one of them leaned almost eagerly forward.