During the interval he told her his name, Robert Berger, and she told him hers.
He added that he lived with his mother at Neuilly and that he worked in a broker’s office.
He talked in an educated way, with a boyish enthusiasm that made her laugh, and there was an animation about him that Lydia could not but feel attractive.
His shining eyes, the mobility of his face, suggested an ardent nature.
To sit next to him was like sitting in front of a fire; his youth glowed with a physical warmth.
When the concert was over they walked along the Champs-Elysees together and then he asked her if she would like some tea.
He would not let her refuse.
It was a luxury Lydia had never known to sit in a smart tea-shop among well-dressed people, and the appetizing smell of cakes, the heady smell of women’s perfume, the warmth, the comfortable chairs, the noisy talk, went to her head.
They sat there for an hour.
Lydia told him about herself, what her father had been and what had happened to him, how she lived now and how she earned her living; he listened as eagerly as he talked.
His gray eyes were tender with sympathy.
When it was time for her to go he asked her whether she would come to a cinema one evening.
She shook her head.
“Why not?”
“You are a rich young man, and …”
“Oh, no, I’m not.
Far from it.
My mother has little more than her pension and I have only the little I make.”
“Then you shouldn’t have tea at expensive tea-rooms.
Anyhow I am a poor working girl.
Thank you for all your kindness to me, but I am not a fool; you have been sweet to me, I don’t think it would be very nice of me to accept more of your kindness when I can make no return for it.”
“But I don’t want a return.
I like you.
I like to be with you.
Last Sunday, when you were crying, you looked so touching, it broke my heart.
You’re alone in the world, and I—I’m alone too in my way.
I was hoping we could be friends.”
She looked at him coolly for a moment.
They were the same age, but of course really she was years older than he; his mien was so candid she had no doubt that he believed what he said, but she was wise enough to know that he was talking nonsense.
“Let me be quite frank with you,” she said.
“I know I’m not a raving beauty, but after all I’m young and there are people who think me prettyish, people who like the Russian type, it’s asking too much of me to believe that you are seeking my society just for the pleasure of my conversation.
I’ve never been to bed with a man.
I don’t think it would be very honest of me if I let you go on wasting your time and your money on me when I have no intention of going to bed with you.”
“That is frank enough in all conscience,” he smiled, oh, so charmingly, “but you see, I knew that.
I haven’t lived in Paris all my life without learning something.
I know instinctively whether a girl is ready for a little fun or if she isn’t.
I saw at once that you were good.
If I held your hand at the concert it was because you were feeling the music as deeply as I was, and the touch of your hand—I hardly know how to explain it—I felt that your emotion flowed into me and gave mine a richer intensity.
Anyhow there was in my feeling nothing of desire.”
“And yet we were feeling very different things,” she said thoughtfully.
“Once I looked at your face and I was startled by its expression.
It was cruel and ruthless.
It was not like a human face any more, it was a mask of triumphant malice.
It frightened me.”
He laughed gaily and his laugh was so young, so musical and care-free, the look of his eyes so tenderly frank, it was impossible to believe that for a moment under the influence of that emotional music his features had borne an expression of such cold ferocity.
“What fancies you have!
You don’t think I am a white-slaver, like at the cinema, and that I am trying to get you into my clutches and shall then ship you out to Buenos Aires?”
“No,” she smiled, “I don’t think that.”
“How can it hurt you to come to the pictures with me?
You’ve made the position quite clear and I accept it.”