"How rotten!" In the gilt metal vanity-bag, Patrine’s inseparable adjunct, lurked, in the company of a mirror, powder-puff, and note-book, a tiny white silk purse. In the purse nestled two plump British half sovereigns, the moiety of Patrine’s salary for the previous week. "Would you jump down my throat if I asked you to let me finance you?" she pleaded, an eager hand in the depths of the receptacle. "Why not?"
"Because I’m a decent man!" If he had been previously crimson he was now scarlet as a boiled lobster. "Thanks all the same, though! I can’t wait here, even to catch Davis.... I must bike back to Drancy, where I’ve left the Bird—the machine—in the German’s shed... Not a soul to keep an eye on her! ... My heart’s in my mouth when I think of what might hap—" He bit off the end of the sentence and went on: "But if you’d be so awfully kind as to take charge of this, in case you ... There’s a message written on it...." He offered her a soiled, bent card.
"I understand. If I should chance to come across your Davis.... A little man ... looking like a Welshman.... But you haven’t told me whether he’s dark or fair!"
"Black as a crow," he told her. "Not dressed like me!" His well-cut mouth began to twist upwards at the corners.
"Quite a swell, in a silk-faced frock-coat, white vest and striped accompaniments. A silk hat, too, rather curly brimmed, but still, a topper. I suppose a friend of the lady’s rented Davis the kit."
"Of the lady’s? ..." She remembered. "Yes, yes! Of course! ... The German’s appendage.... Why! ... Look! ... Those two people who have just passed the turn-stile at the other end of the Promenade.... If there’s anything in description, here comes Davis with the goo-goo girl!"
"By—gum! You’ve nailed me the pair of them." As the aviator’s long strides bore him down in the direction of the little sallow, black-avised mechanic in the capacious silk-faced frock-coat, and his high-bosomed, florid, flaxen-haired enchantress, and before the moustached guardian of the Promenade could renew his indignant protest, Patrine had dropped the little sovereign-purse in his deep, rapacious hand. And at that instant the music ended with a crashing succession of barbaric chords. The São Paulo dance was done.