‘Sixteen of them,’ she counted, ‘and a diamond drop!’
‘Au revoir. Until to-night.’
‘Oh, the rush!’
‘You’re ready? Packed—’
‘All I dare. I could hardly bring away my big box – the one with the furs and flannels! …’
‘You’ll need your passport.’
‘It’s lost.’
‘Lost!’
‘Gerald must have burnt it, she says, among her papers. She’s everlastingly burning things. She lights her fire in the evening just as she bolts her door … And then she burns things, and dreams things, and pokes things, and mutters things – l’heure exquise, she calls it.’
‘… Very likely.’
‘I’ve an idea it’s rheumatics, poor soul …’
‘M-a-b-e-l!’ Miss O’Brookomore called again.
‘I must go to her …’
‘One kiss!’
‘O-o-o-o-h!’
‘Another!’
‘Not till we get in the train.’
‘Cara mia dolce!’
‘And thanks very much for the diamonds,’ Miss Collins replied.
Loitering up and down the hall among the tubs of orange-trees – now in full flower – Miss O’Brookomore was growing ruffled.
‘It’s charming!’ she said. ‘It appears he’s on our floor.’
‘Oh no, he’s not, Gerald … He’s on the floor above. Right overhead, dearie.’
Miss O’Brookomore looked away.
‘There are people, I find, who have no heads,’ she ruefully remarked. ‘They’ve lost them.’
‘I don’t know why you should dislike him, Gerald. Because he doesn’t you. He calls you the pretty priestess …’
The Biographer unbent a shade.
‘Does he?’ she inquired.
‘Are you going for your walk?’
‘I told Miss Dawkins we would help her to find her parents.’
‘It’s too late to go far, dearie.’
‘Nonsense!’
‘How can she expect to find them, Gerald, sitting all day with a Gin Daisy or a Brandy Flip? Tell me that now!’
‘Anyway we might take a turn round the garden … If they’re here at all I expect they’re in the shrubbery.’
It was the hour when, to a subtle string band, the bustling waiters would be bringing tea.
‘Oh, the Sophonisbas, Gerald! – some of them.’
Their tired, art-stained faces turned towards a little Saint with rose lips, eyes and crown, Mrs Erso-Ennis and Mrs Viviott were overwhelming with attentions the pupil of Tasajara.
‘Mercy, Gerald!’
‘Hein!’
‘There’s bound to be heart-burnings, Gerald.’
‘… I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘And there’s your God-of-the-Wood, dearie …’
Miss O’Brookomore changed her course.
‘Not before the windows!’ she exclaimed.
‘Olympia for love, Gerald.’
‘Olympia for tattle.’
‘Oh, Gerald! I mean to fling in my lot with a crowd of absolute strangers …’
‘What!’
‘Love isn’t logical, Gerald.’
‘Alas!’
‘What has your friend a year?’
‘How should I know, dearie?’
‘It’s important to know.’
‘It’s better to be poor – I’ve often heard mum say – than to have a soft seat in hell.’
‘An Italian is very easily enamoured.’
‘I love his dark plastered hair, Gerald. I think it quite sweet.’
‘It isn’t enough …’
‘He’s like somebody from Marathon, Gerald!’
‘You’re young yet.’
‘Oh, Gerald, when he sang the Shepherd-Star-Song from Tannhäuser and gave that shake! … You can’t think how much I was moved … How I responded …’
‘His catches from Butterfly would get on my nerves!’
‘Had I nerves like you I couldn’t rest without a passport.’
‘It’s tiresome, I admit.’
‘It’s that, dearie …’
‘Don’t despond!’
‘Suppose they detained you, Gerald?’
‘Why, we’d sing a duet together.’
‘Wait till there’s a warrant!’
‘A warrant?’
‘Sometimes I think of the prison we saw in Patras, with the prisoners all thrusting their heads out between the bars.’
‘Don’t, Mabel!’
‘Oh, Gerald! It’s a climax and a perfect semax, dear.’
‘We’re not helping Miss Dawkins at all!’
‘You go one way, Gerald. And I’ll go another …’
Miss O’Brookomore glanced behind her.
Already the sun-topped hills were lost in lilac towards the ground. It would soon be night.
‘Very well,’ she murmured, letting fall a glove; ‘we will meet again at dinner.’