What did it signify then, this evening in which she let go the strained reserve which at any other time she would have retained?  What did it signify, so long as the deepest beating of her heart was unmoved by the quickened pulses and the eyes alight with a reckless laughter?

It mattered nothing to her who knew its meaning; but to Devenish, seeing the colour lifting to her cheeks, watching the sparkling in those eyes which had met his but an hour or more ago, when disappointed hope had thrown them into deep shadows, there was a tentative significance.  It appealed to the lowest nature of his senses to see her, whom he had long desired, unbending in her reticence.  Her laughter was a whip about his body; her lips, parted—­losing that expression of restraint—­were becoming an obsession to his eyes.  But he guarded all his actions with a steady hand.

When her glass was empty for the second time, he stretched out his hand to refill it again.

“Oh—­I’d better not have any more,” she said lightly.  “Whatever would you do with me if I took too much?” And she laughed.  Laughed, he imagined, at the possibilities that rose to her mind, and it was on the edge of his lips to say the things he would do.

“Another glass can’t hurt you,” he said, laughing with her.  “Here—­I’ll fill mine—­there”—­he held up the bottle for her to see—­“Now you have the remainder.  You don’t want me to drink it all, do you?  I should like to know what you’d do—­I suppose you’d give me in charge of the head waiter?  I guess you’d shirk your responsibilities more than I would.”  And as he talked, he emptied the bottle into her glass beneath the fringe of the conversation.

“Ever hear that story,” he began again, and caught her attention once more with an idle tale that had worn its way through half the clubs in Town.  His yarns were all fresh to her, and, moreover, he spun them amazingly well.  There was none of that disconcerting fear of their staleness to thwart him—­no need for the tentative preface—­“You’ll say if you’ve heard this before.”  One suggested another—­they rolled off his tongue.  And while she sipped her champagne, he kept her amused; never allowed her the moments of inaction in which to relent.  He amused himself.  The old, worn-out story has all the humour still keen in it for you—­if you tell it.  It was no effort, no strain to Devenish.  He laughed as heartily as she did over the stale old jests.  Their novelty to her made them new to him.  She leant her elbows on the table and watched his face as he told them.

“Now,” he said, when they had finished their coffee, “how about the songs?  I’ve done my share of the entertainment.  As soon as I’ve got the bill, we’ll go back, and you can supply the more serious items of the programme.”

“Really—­I’m afraid I couldn’t.  I believe you think I sing well—­I don’t.  I did think of going on the stage once—­into musical comedy—­but not because I was musical.”