Then Tommy and Nick removed their cloaks, and sat displayed as a geisha and a contadina, respectively.  Musa had already unmasked his devilry.  The cafe was not in the least disturbed by these gorgeous and strange apparitions.  An orchestra began to play.  Lobster arrived, and high glasses full of glinting green.  Audrey ate and drank with gusto, with innocence, with the intensest love of life.  And she was the most beautiful and touching sight in the cafe-restaurant.  Miss Ingate, grinning, caught her eye with joyous mockery.  “We are going it, aren’t we, Audrey?” shrieked Miss Ingate.

Miss Thompkins and Miss Nickall began slowly to differentiate themselves in Audrey’s mind.  At first they were merely two American girls—­the first Audrey had met.  They were of about the same age—­whatever that age might be—­and if they were not exactly of the same age, then Tommy with red hair was older than Nick with grey hair.  Indeed, Nick took the earliest opportunity to remark that her hair had turned grey at nineteen.  They both had dreamy eyes that looked through instead of looking at; they were both hazy concerning matters of fact; they were both attached like a couple of aunts to Musa, who nestled between them like a cat between two cushions; they were both extraordinarily friendly and hospitable; they both painted and both had studios—­in the same house; they both showed quite a remarkable admiration and esteem for all their acquaintances; and they both lacked interest in their complexions and their hair.

The resemblance did not go very much farther.  Tommy, for all her praising of friends, was of a critical, curious, and analytical disposition, and her greenish eyes were always at work qualifying in a very subtle manner what her tongue said, when her tongue was benevolent, as it often was.  Feminism and suffragism being the tie between the new acquaintances, these subjects were the first material of conversation, and an empress of militancy known to the world as “Rosamund” having been mentioned, Miss Ingate said with enthusiasm: 

“She lives only for one thing.”

“Yes,” replied Tommy.  “And if she got it, I guess no one would be more disgusted than she herself.”

There was an instant’s silence.

“Oh, Tommy!” Nick lovingly protested.

Said Miss Ingate with a comprehending satiric grin: 

“I see what you mean.  I quite see.  I quite see.  You’re right, Miss Thompkins.  I’m sure you’re right.”

Audrey decided she would have to be very clever in order to be equal to Tommy’s subtlety.  Nick, on the other hand, was not a bit subtle, except when she tried to imitate Tommy.  Nick was kindness, and sympathy, and vagueness.  You could see these admirable qualities in every curve of her face and gleam of her eyes.  She was very sympathetic, but somewhat shocked when Audrey blurted out that she had not come to Paris in order to paint.

“There are at least fifty painters in this cafe this very minute,” said Tommy.  And somehow it was just as if she had said:  “If you haven’t come to Paris to paint, what have you come for?”