Miss Pluvier smiled.
She turned to the gambler.
"Now, if you will be kind enough to take him to your tailor and have six suits made for him – three white and three black – I think everything will be in order."
The gambler smiled. "I’ll attend to it right away."
Max followed him.
At the door, he stopped and looked back.
She was seated at the dressing table in front of the mirror, brushing her hair.
Her eyes glanced up and caught his.
"Thank you, ma'am," he said.
"Please call me Miss Pluvier," she said coldly.
It was after three o'clock one morning when Max came into the foyer from the gaming rooms on his nightly tour of inspection.
Already, the cleaning women were busy in the downstairs rooms.
He paused at the front door.
"Everythin' locked up, Jacob?" he asked the tall Negro doorman.
"Tighter'n a drum, Mistuh Sand."
"Good," Max smiled as he started for the staircase, then stopped and looked back.
"Did Mr. Darcy leave?"
"No, suh," the Negro replied.
"He spendin' the night with Miss Eleanor.
You don' have to worry, though. I move 'em to the gol' room."
Max nodded and started up the staircase.
Darcy had been his only problem the last few months.
The young man was determined not to be satisfied until he had spent a night with the mistress of the house.
And tonight he had been rather unpleasant about it.
Max stopped at the top of the stairway. He knocked at a door and went in.
His employer was seated at her dressing table, a maid brushing her hair.
Her eyes met his in the mirror.
"Everythin's locked up, Miss Pluvier," he said.
Her eyebrows raised questioningly. "Darcy?"
"In the gold room with Eleanor at the other end of the house."
"Bon." She nodded.
Max stood there looking at her, his face troubled.
She saw his expression in the mirror and waved the maid from the room.
"You are disturbed, cheri?"
He nodded. "It's Darcy," he admitted.
"I don't like the way he's actin'.
I think we ought to bar him."
"La." She laughed. "We can't do that. The family is too important." She laughed again happily and came toward him. She placed her arms around his neck and kissed him. "My young Indien is jealous." She smiled.
"Do not worry about him. He will forget about it soon.
All young men do. I have seen it happen before."
A little while later, he lay beside her on the big white bed, his eyes delighting in the wonder of her lovely body.
He felt her fingers stroking him gently, reawakening the fires inside him.
He closed his eyes.
He felt her soft lips brushing his flesh; her whispering voice seemed to float upward to him.
"Mon coeur, mon indien, mon cheri."
He heard the soft sounds of her pleasure as she raised her lips from him.
Through his almost closed lids he could see the blurred sensuality of her face. "The weapon you carry has turned into a cannon," she murmured, her fingers still stroking him gently. His hand reached out and stroked her hair. An expression of almost frightened ecstasy came into her face and he closed his eyes.
He could feel the trembling begin deep inside him.
How could a woman know so much?
From what deep spring could such a fountain of pleasure come? He caught his breath. It was almost unbearable, this strange delight. It was like nothing he had ever known.