“Not Victor?” cried the girl, laughing, but she passed with a little shiver, nodding goodnight, then turning into the Boulevard St. Germain, she walked a tittle faster to escape a gay party sitting before the Café Cluny who called to her to join them. At the door of the Restaurant Mignon stood a coal-black negro in buttons. He took off his peaked cap as she mounted the carpeted stairs.
“Send Eugene to me,” she said at the office, and passing through the hallway to the right of the dining-room stopped before a row of panelled doors. A waiter passed and she repeated her demand for Eugene, who presently appeared, noiselessly skipping, and bowed murmuring, “Madame.”
“Who is here?”
“No one in the cabinets, madame; in the half Madame Madelon and Monsieur Gay, Monsieur de Clamart, Monsieur Clisson, Madame Marie and their set.” Then he looked around and bowing again murmured, “Monsieur awaits madame since half an hour,” and he knocked at one of the panelled doors bearing the number six.
Clifford opened the door and the girl entered.
The garçon bowed her in, and whispering, “Will Monsieur have the goodness to ring?” vanished.
He helped her off with her jacket and took her hat and umbrella. When she was seated at the little table with Clifford opposite she smiled and leaned forward on both elbows looking him in the face.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“Waiting,” he replied, in accents of adoration.
For an instant she turned and examined herself in the glass. The wide blue eyes, the curling hair, the straight nose and short curled lip flashed