Courtlandt poured out a second glass slowly. The wine bubbled up to the brim and overflowed. He had been looking at the glass with unseeing eyes. He set the bottle down impatiently. Fool! To have gone to Burma, simply to stand in the golden temple once more, in vain, to recall that other time: the starving kitten held tenderly in a woman's arms, his own scurry among the booths to find the milk so peremptorily ordered, and the smile of thanks that had been his reward! He had run away when he should have hung on. He should have fought every inch of the way....
A pretty young woman sat down before him in the vacant chair.
Anger, curiosity, interest; these sensations blanketed one another quickly, leaving only interest, which was Courtlandt's normal state of mind when he saw a pretty woman. It did not require very keen scrutiny on his part to arrive swiftly at the conclusion that this one was not quite in the picture. Her cheeks were not red with that redness which has a permanency of tone, neither waxing nor waning, abashed in daylight. Nor had her lips found their scarlet moisture from out the depths of certain little porcelain boxes. Decidedly she was out of place here, yet she evinced no embarrassment; she was cool, at ease. Courtlandt's interest strengthened.
"Why do you think I am lonely, Mademoiselle?" he asked, without smiling.
"Oh, when one talks to one's self, strikes the table, wastes good wine, the inference is but natural. So, Monsieur is lonely."
Her lips and eyes, as grave and smileless as his own, puzzled him. An adventure? He looked at some of the other women. Those he could understand, but this one, no. At all times he was willing to smile, yet to draw her out he realized that he must preserve his gravity unbroken. The situation was not usual. His gaze came back to her.
"Is the comparison favorable to me?" she asked.
"It is. What is loneliness?" he demanded cynically.
"Ah, I could tell you," she answered. "It is the longing to be with the one we love; it is the hate of the wicked things we have done; it is remorse."
"That echoes of the Ambigu-Comique." He leaned upon his arms. "What are you doing here?"
"Yes. You do not talk like the other girls who come here."