‘So far I’ve not observed one!’
‘Of what?’
‘A nose! Athens and heavenly noses … Mum said I should.’
Miss O’Brookomore threw upon her head a bewildering affair with a vampire-bat’s-wing slanting behind.
‘Patience,’ she murmured. ‘We haven’t been here long enough.’
‘Quite long enough to find out the English chemist isn’t English!’
‘Why, aren’t you up to the mark?’
‘I was attempting to ward off freckles.’
‘Pretty Mrs Wilna often used to say the utmost she ever did was to apply a little cold-cream just as she got into bed.’
Miss Collins moved from one chair to another.
‘Oh, come and look! Oh!’
‘What ever is it?’
‘There’s such a shocking dispute in the Square!’
Beneath a bruised blue, almost a violet, sky lay the town. Very white and very clean.
On the pavement some youths, with arms entwined, seemed to be locked in the convulsions of a dance.
‘Let us go down and sit in a café.’
Miss O’Brookomore became evasive.
‘I want you to repress yourself a little for a few days. Be more discreet.’
‘Because—’
‘Professor and Mrs Cowsend have the rooms next ours …’
‘Buz! Let them!’
‘Also, the Arbanels are here on their honeymoon … You never saw such ghosts on their rambles.’
‘Who is Mr Arbanel?’
‘He’s very blasé.’
Miss Collins clasped her hands.
‘I’d give almost anything to be blasé.’
Miss O’Brookomore turned from her.
‘Those Customs!’ she lamented. ‘Everything arrives so crushed.’
‘Are you going out to see what you can find?’
‘I dare say I may look in at the library of the University.’
Miss Collins became contemplative.
‘Who knows, away in the Underworld she may be watching you …’
‘My poor puss, Athens must seem to you a trifle dull.’
‘It isn’t really. I could sit for hours on my balcony and watch the passers-by. So many of them don’t pass. At least, not directly.’
‘You mean they stop?’
‘Sometimes. But what does it matter? – when one isn’t a linguist.’
‘Palmer should be with you more.’
‘Palmer seems so squeamish.’
The Biographer fetched a sigh.
‘Indeed, the way she sprinkles naphthaline has quite put out the violets.’
‘All except her own!’
‘Her own?’
‘Oh, Gerald … Every week there is a dance, dear, in the hotel.’
Miss O’Brookomore shrugged her shoulders.
‘Don’t expect me to attend any of them,’ she said, ‘that’s all.’
‘Oh, darling, how can you be so Spartan! How?’
‘You forget, dear, my dancing days are nearly done.’
‘Wait … Wait … Wait till you hear the throb-thrum-throb of a string band … Oh, Gerald!’
‘I should be sound asleep.’
‘Fiddlesticks! You’d fling a wrap about you and down you’d come.’
‘And you’d heighten your cheeks in such a hurry that everybody would suppose you’d been using jam.’
‘Believe me, I’d deal with the manager without the least compunction.’
‘You’d complain?’
‘I’d demand to change my room.’
‘S-s-s-h! Here’s Palmer.’
‘Ah, no more naphthaline, please.’
‘There’s a packet for Miss Hill …’
‘Take it away. It’s not for us.’
‘I expect it’s for me! Collins, Colline, Collina Hill. I thought it was advisable not to give my own name at any of the shops …’
‘Collina! Have you been chatting with the Count?’
‘As I went out he was stirring up the weather-glass in the front hall.’
‘I fear he takes you to be an heiress.’
‘But he’s very well off as it is! Haven’t you noticed? He doesn’t tip. He rewards. Besides, dear, I could never marry a man who had corns on his feet, or who didn’t say his prayers.’
‘How do you know he has corns?’
‘Because he told me. He couldn’t get up to the Acropolis, he said, on account of his corns …’
‘Isn’t that a blessing?’
‘Look, Gerald, I bought these tags to keep off flies.’
‘In Arcadia they will be just the thing.’
‘The Count was saying how rash it was for two docile women to go alone into such inaccessible places …’
With pursed lips the Historian tuned her veil.
‘Pooh!’ she fiddled.