Her impartial and uninterested gaze rested on him; after a moment she inclined her head, leisurely and in silence.
He said in French:
"Would Mademoiselle do me the honor of dancing this dance with me?"
She replied in a sweet but indifferent voice:
"Monsieur is too amiable. But he sees that I am _caissiere_ of the establishment."
"Yet even the fixed stars of heaven dance sometimes to the music of the spheres."
She smiled slightly:
"When one is merely a fixture _de cabaret_, one dances only to the music of the _Sbires_! You must ask Monsieur Wildresse if I may dance with you."
"He suggested that I ask you."
"Very well, if it's a matter of business----"
Warner laughed.
"Don't you ever dance for pleasure?" he asked in English.
She replied in English:
"Is it your theory that it would give me pleasure to dance with you?"
"It is," he said, still laughing. "But by demonstration alone are theories proven."
The girl hesitated, her grey eyes resting on him. Then she turned her head, drew a pencil from her chestnut hair, rapped with it on the counter. A head waiter came speeding to her.
"Aristide, I'm going to dance," she said in the same sweetly indifferent voice. "Have the goodness to sit in my chair until I return or Melanie arrives."
She slid to the floor from her high seat, came out, through the wire gate, and began to unpin her cambric apron.
The closer view revealed to him her thinness in her black gown. She was not so tall as he had thought her, and she was younger; but he had been right about her cheeks and lips. Both were outrageously painted.
She handed her daintily embroidered apron to the waiter, laid one hand lightly on Warner's arm; he led her to the edge of the dancing floor, clasped her waist and swung her with him out into the noisy whirl beyond.
Thin, almost immature in her angular slenderness, the girl in motion became enchantingly graceful. Supple as a sapling in the summer wind, her hand rested feather-light in his; her long, narrow feet seemed like shadows close above the floor, never touching it.
The orchestra ceased playing after a few minutes, but old man Wildresse, who had been watching them, growled, "Go on!" and the music recommenced amid plaudits and shouts of general approval.
Once, as they passed the students' table, Warner heard the voice of old Wildresse in menacing dispute with the student who had first shouted out an invitation to Philippa.
"She dances with whom she chooses!" roared Wildresse. "Do you understand, Monsieur? By God, if the Grand Turk himself asked her she should not dance with him unless she wished to!"
Warner said to her jestingly:
"Did the Grand Turk ever ask you, Philippa?"
The girl did not smile.
"Perhaps I am dancing with him now. One never knows--in a cabaret."
When the music ceased she was breathing only a trifle faster, and her cheeks under the paint glowed softly pink.
"Could you join us?" he asked. "Is it permitted?"
"I'd like to.... Yes."
So he took her back to the table, where Halkett rose and paid his respects gracefully; and they seated themselves and ordered a grenadine for her.
Old Wildresse, sidling by, paused with a non-committal grunt:
"Eh bien? On s'amuse? Dis, petit galopin!"
"I'm thirsty," said the girl Philippa.
"And your _caisse_?"
"Tell them to find Melanie," she retorted indifferently.
"Bon! A _jour de fete_, too! How long are you going to be?" But as she glanced up he winked at her.
She shrugged her shoulders, leaned forward, chose a straw, and plunged it into the crimson depths of her iced grenadine.
Old Wildresse looked at her a moment, then he also shrugged his shoulders and went shuffling away, always apparently distrustful of that invisible something just behind his back.
Halkett said:
"Mr. Warner and I have been discussing an imaginary portrait of you."
"What?" The clear, grey eyes turned questioningly to him, to Warner.
The latter nodded:
"I happen to be a painter. Mr. Halkett and I have agreed that it would be an interesting experiment to paint your portrait--_as you really are_."
The girl seemed slightly puzzled.
"As I really am?" she repeated. "But, Messieurs, am I not what you see before you?"
The music began again; the Louvain student, a little tipsy but very decorous, arose, bowed to the girl Philippa, bowed to Halkett and to Warner, and asked for the honor of a dance with her.
"Merci, Monsieur--another time, perhaps," she replied indifferently.
The boy seemed disposed to linger, but he was not quarrelsome, and finally Halkett got up and led him away.
From moment to moment Warner, glancing across during his tete-a-tete with the girl Philippa, could see the Louvain student continually shaking hands with Halkett who seemed horribly bored.
A little later still the entire Louvain delegation insisted on entertaining Halkett with beer and song; and the resigned but polite Englishman, now seated at their table, was being taught to sing "La Brabanconne," between draughts of Belgian beer.
The girl Philippa played with the stem of her glass and stirred the ice in it with her broken wheat straw. The healthy color in her face had now faded to an indoor pallor again under the rouge.
"So you are a painter," she said, her grey eyes fixed absently on her glass. "Are you a distinguished painter, Monsieur?"
He laughed:
"You'll have to ask others that question, Philippa."
"Why? Don't you know whether you are distinguished?"
"I've had some success," he admitted, amused.
She thought a moment, then leaned forward toward the Louvain table.
"Mr. Halkett," she called in English. "Is Mr. Warner a distinguished American painter?"
Halkett laughed.
"One of the most celebrated American painters of the day!"
The Louvain students, understanding, rose as a man, waved their glasses, and cheered for Warner, the "_grand peintre Americain_." Which embarrassed and annoyed him so that his face grew brighter than the paint on Philippa's lips.
"I'm sorry," she said, noticing his annoyance. "I did not mean to make you conspicuous."
Everybody in the cafe was now looking at him; on every side he gazed into amused and smiling faces, saw glasses lifted, heard the cries of easily aroused Gallic enthusiasm.
"Vive le grand peintre Americain! Vive l'Amerique du Nord!"
"This is tiresome!" exclaimed Philippa. "Let us walk down to the river and sit in one of our boats. I should really like to talk to you sensibly--unless you are too much annoyed with me."
She beckoned a waiter to bring her apron; and she put it on.
"When you are ready, Monsieur," she said serenely.
So they rose; Warner paid the bill, and, with a whimsical smile at Halkett, walked out beside Philippa through one of the rear doors, and immediately found himself in brightest sunshine, amid green trees and flower beds.
Here, under the pitiless sky, the girl's face became ghastly under its rouged mask--the more shocking, perhaps, because her natural skin, if pale, appeared to be smooth and clear; and the tragic youth of her seemed to appeal to all out of doors from the senseless abuse it was enduring.
To see her there in the freshness of the open breeze, sunshine and shadow dappling the green under foot, the blue overhead untroubled by a cloud, gave Warner a slightly sick sensation.
"The air is pleasant," she remarked, unconscious of the effect she had on him.
He nodded. They walked down the grassy slope to the river bank, where rows of boats lay moored. A few were already in use out on the calm stream; young men in their shirt sleeves splashed valiantly at the oars; young women looked on under sunshades of flamboyant tints.
There was a white punt there called the _Lys_. Philippa stepped into it, drew a key from her apron pocket, unlocked the padlock. Then, lifting the pole from the grass, she turned and invited Warner with a gesture.
He had not bargained for this; but he tossed the chain aboard, stepped in, and offered to take the pole.
But Philippa evidently desired to do the punting herself; so he sat back, watching her sometimes and sometimes looking at the foliage, where they glided swiftly along under overhanging branches and through still, glimmering reaches of green water, set with scented rushes where dragon flies glittered and midges danced in clouds, and the slim green frogs floated like water sprites, partly submerged, looking at them out of golden goblin eyes that never blinked.
"The town is _en fete_," remarked Philippa presently. "Why should I not be too?"
Warner laughed:
"Do you call this a _fete_?"
"For me, yes." ... After a moment, turning from her pole: "Do you not find it agreeable?"
"Certainly. What little river is this?"
"The Recollette."
"It flows by Sais, too. I did not recognize it for the same. The Recollette is swifter and shallower below Sais."
"You know Sais, then?"
"I live there in summer."
"Oh. And in winter?"
"Paris."
An unconscious sigh of relief escaped her, that it was not necessary to play the spy with this man. It was the other man who interested Wildresse.
The girl poled on in silence for a while, then deftly guided the _Lys_ into the cool green shadow of a huge oak which overhung the water, the lower branches touching it.