Any adjective adequately descriptive of her, he reflected, must have started with a "w". Wistful, winsome, weary all applied, yet these adjectives bore merely a family resemblance to some as yet uncoined word that would define her identity. Perhaps the adjective was uncoined because the girl herself was in a sense uncoined. She was ready to be minted, yet the moment she should become stamped and put into currency at one irremediable valuation her most precious quality must inevitably be lost. Physically she had been in currency for some time,—on that score there was no possible doubt,—but some elusive quality, the quality that set her apart not only from women of her class but from all other women, had never been handled; that, to Grover's intuition, was equally patent.
Once more she looked up from her glass and met his gaze, steadily but not boldly. To his dismay then he heard his own voice saying to her, "May I offer you a drink?"
Calmly, a little hostilely, almost shyly, and with only a moment's hesitation she accepted, and he crossed to her table, conscious of a renewed buzz of chatter in the room. One of the neighbors had the temerity to call out, teasingly, almost affectionately, "Vas-y, Marthe. Enfin tu tes appliquée un Américain. Demandes-lui un manteau de fourrure; il fera frats ce soir."
"Ta gueule!" retorted Marthe, unmoved.
To Grover it seemed that the young men were on
