She was really a beautiful woman and arranged with a wonderful _chic_, and he realized that she had never looked more charming or been so sweet.

She had all the sense of power being on her side, now that she had a free hand, unhampered by honor to her friend, and when the dessert and the cigarettes had come, she felt that she might indulge in a little sentiment.
She remembered that he only smoked cigars, and got up and helped him to light one of his own; and when she was quite close to him, she put her hand out and stroked his hair.
"Even if he does not like it at first," she told herself, "he is too polite to say so, and presently, just because he is a man, it will give him a thrill." "I do love your light hair, Henry," she said aloud, "and it is so well brushed.

You Englishmen are certainly _soigne_ creatures, and I like your lazy, easy grace--as though you would never put yourself out for any one.

I can't bear a fuss." She puffed her cigarette and did not wait for him to answer her, but prattled on perfectly at ease.

Even his courtesy would not have prevented him from snubbing her, if she had been the least tentative in her caressings, or the least diffident.