“O, no,” Maurice declared. “I am not impertinent. I am lonesome. In all Bleiberg I haven't a soul to talk to, excepting the hotel waiters, and they are uninteresting. Grant me the privilege of conversing with you for a moment. We shall never meet again; and I should not know you if we did. Whether you are old or young, plain or beautiful, it matters not. My only wish is to talk to a woman, to hear a woman's voice.”
“Shall I call a gendarme, Monsieur, and have him search for your nurse?” The attitude which accompanied these words was anything but assuring.
He, however, evinced no alarm. He even laughed. “That was good! We shall get along finely, I am sure.”
“Monsieur,” she said, rising, “I repeat that I do not desire your company, nor to remain in the presence of your unspeakable effrontery.”
“I beseech you!” implored Maurice, also rising. “I am a foreigner, lonesome, unhappy, thousands of miles from home--”
“You are English?” suddenly. She stood with the knuckle of her forefinger on her lips as if meditating. She sat down.
Maurice, greatly surprised, also sat down.
“English?” he repeated. His thought was: “What the deuce! This is the third time I have been asked that. Who is this gay Lothario the women seem to be expecting?” To her he continued: “And why do you ask me that?”
“Perhaps it is your accent. And what do you wish to say to me, Monsieur?” It was a voice of quality; all the anger had gone from it. She leaned on her elbows, her chin in her palms, and through the veil he caught the sparkle of a pair of wonderful eyes. “Let us converse in English,” she added. “It is so long since I have had occasion to speak in that tongue.” She repeated her question.
“O, I had no definite plan outlined,” he answered; “just generalities, with the salt of repartee to season.” He pondered over this sudden transition from wrath to mildness. An Englishman? Very well; it might grow interesting.
“Is it customary among the English to request to speak to strangers without the usual formalities of an introduction?”
“I can not say that it is,” he answered truthfully enough; “but the procedure is never without a certain charm and excitement.”
“Ah; then you were led to address me merely by the love of adventure?”