"Nothing--much."
"You must do something, Clive!"
"Oh, yes ... I travel,--go about."
"Is that all?"
"That's about all."
She had stepped aside to let the dancers pass; he moved with her.
She said in a low, even voice: "Is it pleasant to be back, Clive?"
He nodded in silence.
"Nothing has changed very much since you went away. There's a new
administration at the City Hall, a number of new sky-scrapers in town;
people danced the Tango day before yesterday, the Maxixe yesterday,
the Miraflores to-day, the Orchid to-morrow. That's about all, Clive."
And as he merely acquiesced in silence, she glanced up sideways at
him, and remained watching this new, sun-browned, lean-visaged version
of the boy she had first known and the boyish man who had gone out of
her life four years before.
"Would you like to see Hafiz?" she asked.
He turned quickly toward her: "Yes," he said, the ghost of a smile
lining the corners of his eyes.
"He's on my bed, asleep. Will you come?"
Slipping along the edges of the dancing floor and stepping daintily
over the rolled rugs, she led the way through the passage to her rose
and ivory bedroom, Clive following.
Hafiz opened his eyes and looked across at them from the pillow, stood
up, his back rounding into a furry arch; yawned, stretched first one
hind leg and then the other, and finally stood, flexing his forepaws
and uttering soft little mews of recognition and greeting.
"I wonder," she said, smilingly, "if you have any idea how much Hafiz
has meant to me?"
He made no reply; but his face grew sombre and he laid a lean,
muscular hand on the cat's head.
Neither spoke again for a little while. Finally his hand fell from the
appreciative head of Hafiz, dropping inert by his side, and he stood
looking at the floor. Then there was the slightest touch on his arm,
and he turned to go; but she did not move; and they confronted each
other, alone, and after many years.
Suddenly she stretched out both hands, looking him full in the eyes,
her own brilliant with tears: "I've got you back--haven't I?" she said unsteadily. But he could not
speak, and stood savagely controlling his quivering lip with his
teeth.
"I just want you as I had you, Clive--my first boy friend--who turned
aside from the bright highway of life to speak to a ragged child.... I
have had the boy; I have had the youth; I want the man, Clive,--honestly,
in perfect innocence.