“Well,” she said, “I have large discretionary powers. We have a very strong branch over on this side, but I would very much rather induce you to stay here without applying to them.”
“And the inducements?” he asked.
She took a cigarette from a box which stood on the table and lit one.
“Well,” she said, “I might appeal to your hospitality, might I not? I am in a strange country which you have made your home. I want to be shown round. Do you remember dining with me one night at the Ambassador’s? It was very hot, even for Paris, and we drove afterwards in the Bois. Ask me to dine with you here, won’t you? I have never quite forgotten the last time.”
Mr. Sabin laughed softly, but with undisguised mirth.
“Come,” he said, “this is an excellent start. You are to play the Circe up to date, and I am to be beguiled. How ought I to answer you? I do remember the Ambassador’s, and I do remember driving down the Bois in your victoria, and holding—I believe I am right—your hand. You have no right to disturb those charming memories by attempting to turn them into bathos.”
She blew out a little cloud of tobacco smoke, and watched it thoughtfully.
“Ah!” she remarked. “I wonder who is better at that, you or I? I may not be exactly a sentimental person, but you—you are a flint.”
“On the contrary,” Mr. Sabin assured her earnestly, “I am very much in love with my wife.”
“Dear me!” she exclaimed. “You carry originality to quixoticism. I have met several men before in my life whom I have suspected of such a thing, but I never heard any one confess it. This little domestic contretemps is then, I presume, disagreeable to you!”
“To the last degree,” Mr. Sabin asserted. “So much so that I leave for England by the Campania.”
She shook her head slowly.
“I wouldn’t if I were you.”
“Why not?”
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