He leant back to let Berthe put the plates of soup before them, and Sally watched his face.  It was very hard—­high cheek-bones from which the flesh drooped in hollows to the jaws, the grey eyes well set, neither deep nor prominent, but flinching at nothing.  There was no great show of intellectuality in the forehead—­it was broad, smooth, but not high; yet none of the features were small.  The jaw was square, the upper lip long.  At one end the mouth seemed to bend upwards in a twist of irony, rather than humour, and the lips themselves were thin—­lips that could cut each word to a point if they chose, before they uttered it, a mouth by no means sensitive to the hard things it could speak.

To Sally it both feared and fascinated.  Whenever he was not looking, she could not take her eyes away.  In the pictures in her mind, it showed itself most often in ironic rage; yet he could look at her with an expression that wooed the softest of thoughts in her heart.  Then she felt a slave, and would have given him the world, held in her fingers, the gift would have seemed so small.

He looked up quickly from his plate—­all motions of his head were alert.  “Why don’t you begin your soup?” he asked.

She laughed quietly, and commenced at once with childlike obedience.

“Has Mr. Arthur said anything to you since?” he inquired presently.

For a short moment she hesitated—­then she admitted it.

“When?”

“Monday evening.”

“Oh—­the day you had lunch with me.”

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

Again she hesitated.

“What right have I to ask—­eh?” he interrupted before she could frame the words to reply.  “Isn’t that what you’re sticking over?  Of course I’ve no right but interest.  You brought me the interest, you know—­but I apologize for it all the same.  Berthe!”

“Oui—­Monsieur.”

“Maquereaux grilles; and I want something to drink.”

Berthe went to the bottom of the stairs, leaning on the third step with her hand and calling up to the room above.

“Alexandre!”

“Why does she do that?” inquired Sally.

“She’s calling for Alexandre, the waiter who runs out across the street—­obediently but slowly—­with your pennies to buy your wine.  They don’t have a license here.”

Alexandre made his appearance with a big red cardboard cover in his hand, which looked as if it held a copy of a weekly paper.  This was the wine list.  Traill gripped it from him, giving the number almost at the same moment.

Alexandre waited patiently for a moment, then deferentially suggested that he should be given the money, having received which, the little staircase swallowed up his tall, thin body again.  It was all like playing at keeping restaurant, only everything worked without a hitch, which would never have happened if it had really been only a game.

“I apologize,” Traill repeated, when Alexandre had disappeared.