Monty Scott, turning his small, close-cropped head of a soldier and his white face towards the tapestry, blurted out: "Well! At all events they've _had_ it. But even having it 'spoilt' is better than never having had any----"
He was not going to whine now over his own ill-luck in love to her, to Leslie, who had turned him down three times. Not much.
In the suddenly tense atmosphere of the little room overlooking the wide, dim Square, the girl felt the young man's resolution--a resolution that he would keep. He would never ask her for another favour.
He cleared his throat and spoke in an altered tone, casual, matter-of-fact.
"Awfully pretty, the little girl that Dampier married, wasn't she? Usen't she to live at that Club of yours? I think I saw her once, somewhere or other----"
"Yes. You did," said Leslie quickly, and a little breathlessly as though she, too, had just taken a resolution. "At that dance. That river dance. She was the Cherub-girl. And I wore my mauve Nijinski things. You remember that time, Monty?"
"Oh, yes," said the wounded man shortly, "I remember."
There was a slight, uneasy movement under the panther-skin rug.
He hadn't thought that Leslie would have reminded him of those times. Not of that dance, when, with his hands on her hips and her hands clasped at the back of his neck, he had swung round with her in the maddest of waltzes.... He wouldn't have expected her to _remind_ him!
Nor was he expecting the next thing that Leslie did. She slipped from that low chair on to her knees by the couch. Her furs touched his hand, delicate and whiter now than a woman's, and he took it quickly away. He could not look at the vivid, impish face with the black, mocking eyes and the red, mocking mouth that had always bewitched him. Had he looked, he would have seen that the mockery was gone from both. It was gone, too, from Leslie's voice when she next spoke, close to him.
"Monty! At that dance---- Have you forgotten? We were walking by the river--and you said--you asked----"
"Yes, yes; all right. Please don't mind," muttered the man who had been the Black Panther hastily. It was pretty awful, having girls _sorry_ for one!
She went on kneeling by him. "I told you that I wasn't in the mood!"