“You are not feeling so tired tonight?” he asked as they were finishing dinner.
“I am not in the least tired!” Valda answered. “You made me rest this afternoon, something I never do when I am at home.”
“What do you do when you are at home?” Roydon asked, “and where is home – in Paris?”
“Most of the time,” Valda answered.
“Do you walk about Paris alone as you do here?” he asked.
There was a pause before Valda replied,
“Why not? But I am often with – friends.”
“Male or female?”
“When I am walking, if that is what interests you – male.”
She was thinking of her stepfather as she spoke and how, because the Comte insisted on taking exercise, they would walk in the Tuileries Gardens, along the banks of the Seine or sometimes even as far as the Bois de Boulogne.
Her mother much preferred
