"
But that was not at all his view.
"Ask me," he said, with his shaky French accent; "I'll come!" and he
put his hand on her arm, with a glance that matched her own. She
seemed pretty well indifferent which of us it should be, and she
merely said imperiously,--
"Come, then!" and with a grimace over her shoulder at me,
disappeared into her brougham again.
Howard would have followed instantly, but I seized his arm.
"What are you doing?" I said in English. "Is it worth it, Howard?
You may regret it. She is probably some married woman!"
Howard wrenched himself free from me.
"Don't talk to me! I'm not the fellow to refuse a jolly good lark
when it's offered to me!"
He flung himself into the brougham without another word, drew the
door to after him, and they were gone, whirling up the Champs
Elysees, leaving me standing on the kerb looking after the polished
black back of the brougham receding and growing small in the
distance.
"Well!" I thought, "if another fellow had told me this tale, I
should have thought it a howler!"
The suddenness of the whole thing had taken my breath away, and I
must have stood there many seconds in confused thought, in which a
flexible form and arched foot took a prominent part.
When I roused myself I saw Nous was lying down beside me with the
patience of a philosopher, and catching the flies that buzzed along
the sunny pavement--to kill time.
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