Thomas Rostetter cast his eye glumly round the table and decided he had seldom encountered a collection of human creatures which pleased him less. The pervading sleekness and vapidity, varied here and there by a precociousness he found even more detestable, made him long to smite, one after another, the self-satisfied faces. Could a glimpse of the near future have been granted him, it is quite likely he would have flung down his napkin and bolted headlong into the night. As it was, less occult than hungry, he sighed with resignation and helped himself bountifully to the excellent caviare.
After all, he reflected in mollified strain, here at his elbow was an oasis in the desert of boredom—a girl refreshing to view, with crisp tulle ruffles throwing into relief the precise combination of dark-red, satin-smooth hair and apple-blossom skin which had always won his admiration. Who was she? Oh, yes, to be sure! She was the girl he had been instructed to look after. Well, he was willing enough to do it, seeing how utterly different she was from her jaded companions; but did she require his services? Serene, assured, and, despite the story he had recently heard, buoyantly gay, she was entirely engrossed in the weary Russian on her right. If she was drinking just a little too much champagne, he could hardly be expected to tap her on the shoulder and beg her to desist. Once only had he seen her before to-night. Probably he would never meet her again. Indeed, his being here at all was a matter of chance and weak-mindedness in not being able to say “No” to a woman’s request.
That the woman in question was Helen Roderick, the hearty-voiced editress of L’Étoile, and his friend since the de Bertincourt mix-up, offered some slight excuse, for Helen was not one to take “No” when what she wanted was “Yes.” He had his London article to finish? Well, and what of it? A journalist with his small regard for truth could dash off three thousand words in no time. Besides, she was in bed with a splitting headache, and must by hook or crook lay hands on a substitute to take her place at dinner. Otherwise there’d be thirteen, and the girl she was chaperoning was horribly superstitious. No, she was not at home. Her apartment was still let, and she was staying on the Ile St. Louis. Dinner was at eight. Black tie. Now hustle! The receiver banged down, cutting short his protests.
Eternally good-natured, Tommy hustled, to such purpose that half an hour later he could have been seen, shaven and scrubbed to a tingling rosiness, bare, black head gleaming with brilliantine and round blue eyes surveying the world with bland cheerfulness, rushing his two-seater round the squat towers of Notre Dame, over the bridge, and into the nostalgic calm of the farther island. It was the fag-end of September; and an evening warm, still, with the softening haze and pause of fruition which bring to mind the bloom on purple grapes. Paris’s down-at-heel season; but here, between the divided waters of the Seine the air held little taint of stale petrol, while the traffic honking and fretting its way along the opposite quais seemed remote, like the echo of a former life.
Another echo, or so he had thought, was the stately, ivy-clad house before which he alighted. He knew it well, even to the mouldy green fountain plashing in the court, and the urn-filled niches along the staircase, but though he racked his brain he could not remember who amongst his old acquaintances had once lived here.
Nor could he place the elderly, Italian butler who, one flight up, stood framed in a lofty doorway, gazing respectfully upon him with lashless eyes as hard and opaque as brown marbles. Undoubtedly he had seen this man before. The grey, cropped skull and dried, ascetic features were every bit as familiar as the building itself. It was not even surprising to find himself addressed in perfect English, when he was informed that Miss Roderick would like to see him, and would he kindly step this way?
Still groping amidst elusive associations, Tommy followed his guide up a fine sweep of interior stairs to a gorgeous bedroom, where in a carved four-poster he beheld Helen Roderick snugly ensconced, wearing smart black satin pyjamas. For a second it crossed his mind she was shamming illness. That scrupulously-waved grey hair, those lips pencilled a vivid magenta, looked remarkably spruce. Then he noticed that her prominent eyes, so exactly like the eyes of a friendly bulldog, held a lurking hint of perturbation.
“Well, well!” he began blithely. “And what’s your complaint?”
“Migraine,” she croaked in her rich, husky voice. “And—a touch of cold feet. You see, I’ve had about all I can stand of Dodo’s parties. They knock me up. I had to yell for help.”
“Dodo?” Tommy echoed pleasantly. “And who’s she?”
“English girl I’m giving an eye to—for my sins. Dorinda Quarles. You know her, of course?”
With a child-like smile Tommy replied, “By reputation. Who doesn’t?” At the same time he experienced a mild astonishment.
Helen sighed. “Too bad, isn’t it? So young, too, not yet twenty-one. . . . Her mother happened to be my closest friend. This was her apartment. Benedetto, who let you in, was her butler. Dodo stays here when she’s in Paris, though the place actually belongs to—”
“Hold on!” cried Tommy, smiting his brow. “Lady Agatha Quarles! I knew I’d been here, though the time I speak of was fifteen years ago, before her second marriage. Let’s see: Whom did she marry?”
Helen bulged at him. “Don’t you know? And a celebrity, too. Why, the whole world’s singing his praises. Look! Here you are.”
She pushed towards him a navy-blue volume bearing the gold-lettered legend, Beyond Relativity. Tommy goggled at it while with a tinge of awe in her voice Helen continued, “An absolute saint, too, if ever there was one. Always patient, always devoted, although the whole three years of their life together poor Agatha was a chronic invalid. She worshipped him, naturally. Any woman would.”
“Basil Jethro?” muttered her visitor, still unbelieving. “Chap who got the Sorbonne presentation this afternoon, big noise at Oxford, special chair and all the rest of it? But—Dorinda Quarles’ step-father! Whew! It’s like saying the Angel Gabriel and Moll Flanders!”
“S’sh! Don’t talk so loud. . . . The child’s not so black as she’s painted. Headstrong, blatant, but she’s big-hearted, generous to a fault. What I chiefly hold against her is her brutal treatment of Basil. Till she’s of age he’s her guardian and trustee, but beyond minding her affairs he’s long since given up trying to curb her. Hopeless, you know, and so mortifying for him. How can a man of his type, living in such a rarified atmosphere that he makes you think—well, of the stars—cope with a minx who flaunts his authority, rails against him, and constantly humiliates him?”
If one credited but half the gossip current about the shameless Dorinda the situation leaped to the eye. The girl was by all accounts coarse, flamboyant, untrammeled by scruples or breeding: indiscriminate in love, and with a capacity for drink which had led her to the open boast that, like a certain gentleman of Half-Moon Street, she never breakfasted, but was sick at eleven. . . .
“I lunched with Basil a month ago,” explained Helen guardedly. “At his villa in Cap Ferrat: and fool that I was I promised him to take Dodo under my wing for a bit, just while my apartment is let. I said I’d do my best with her, but never did I dream Basil would arrive in Paris and turn up at this flat on the eve of one of her parties. Yes,” with a nervous glance at the door, “he’s on this floor now—not stopping, thank God, only collecting some of his books to take away—but if he hangs about much longer he’ll run into some of her pals. Bannister Mowbray, for example. That would just finish me! But in God’s name, what can I do?”
“Bannister Mowbray!” repeated Tommy, his flax-flower blue eyes very bland. “I heard he was in town. So she’s annexed him, has she?”
“She annexes every shady person within reach. Oh, I know the sort of name he’s got! That’s why, feeling unequal to this myself, I got hold of you. I thought you’d exert a sane, steadying influence.”
“Thanks,” said Tommy dryly.
“No, I mean it. The man can’t do anything, of course, but the general atmosphere surrounding him . . . some of the others, too, aren’t exactly my choice. There’s one, though, who doesn’t belong to the regular crowd. It was about her I wanted to speak to you. Remember a rather charming little American, with red hair, whom I introduced to you one day in the Champs Elysées? Dinah Blake, does those clever drawings for L’Étoile?”
“Um-m—yes. What about her?”
“Just look after her a bit, will you? Not that she’d ever make any kind of scene. Oh, no! But the truth of the matter is, I strongly suspect young Dodo of doing the dirty on her over a man she was going to marry. It’s that good-looking Christopher Loughton, in the American Embassy. Well, directly Dinah got back from her summer holiday, she broke off with him, and—oh, it’s a wretched business!”
The situation seemed to be as follows: Three weeks ago Helen returned one afternoon to find Miss Blake waiting to see her about forthcoming work, and, going into the salon, discovered her caller, the latter’s fiancé, and—Dorinda Quarles.
“I saw at once that Dinah’d come on those two unexpectedly, and guessed what was going on between them. Yes, she and Dodo were acquaintances, fellow-students at Colorossi’s, and they’re still friendly—on the surface. Dinah’s got terrific pride. She’d die sooner than let anyone suspect her reason for breaking her engagement, and to be quite fair I’m positive Dodo never thinks of herself as the cause. Utterly casual as she is, Dodo couldn’t understand attaching importance to these fleeting episodes. For her Loughton’s a back number, wiped out. A gigolo’s got the floor, and good luck to him! But Dinah’s feelings go deeper. I can swear she hasn’t forgotten. If she’s coming here to-night, it’s just a magnificent gesture, but all the same . . .”
Not greatly interested, Tommy had picked up the Jethro book and was glancing idly at the portrait frontispiece. The face which confronted him was nobly austere, cut like a cameo, and, almost ethereal in its refinement, suggested the recluse, far removed from worldly concerns. The eyes, slightly Mongoloid in cast, had the contemplative vision which penetrated through an object to abstract principles beyond. The owner of such eyes, thought Tommy, could readily enough be associated with the fine-spun mathematical sequences contained in this treatise; but how hard it was to think of him as ministering to an ailing wife or shouldering the responsibility of an outrageous step child! Fate plays queer tricks. . . .
A door was heard to close. Helen started with nervous relief.
“There! Basil’s just going.” She mopped her brow with a handkerchief soaked in eau-de-cologne, and motioned him to depart “Get along down, quick, so he can see Dodo has at least one respectable man friend. Don’t hate me for dragging you here. The dinner’ll be good, anyhow.”
Somewhat envious of her comfortable state, he prepared to obey orders; but in the passage he paused, arrested by an abusive tirade coming from the staircase and uttered in a rough contralto voice which he knew instinctively belonged to Dorinda Quarles. Whom was she addressing? Not, surely the apostle of pure reason, honoured throughout two continents; but as he caught the reply, low, restrained, and charged with fastidious shrinking, his incredulity vanished. It was the philosopher who answered, and with what patience, what perfect breeding!
“Dorinda! Please! I merely wished to know if the five hundred I’ve just placed to your account will be sufficient for your immediate needs. As I’m returning to Oxford to-morrow I shall not be seeing you again.”
“Sufficient!” The word was snatched up and flung back with violent contempt. “Since when have you bothered two straws about my needs? Why this amazing solicitude all of a sudden? Eh, what’s it all about?”
There followed a protest, still evenly courteous, which for some obscure reason seemed to lash the hearer to greater fury.
“Oh, stow it, blast you! What do I care? Only six weeks more, and after that I shan’t have to come crawling to you to settle my bills. God! What a release that’ll be!”
“And for me as well, Dorinda.”
The unseen listener was struck by the quiet poignance of this retort, which, however, failed to impress its recipient. Instead, evidently intent on her own train of thought, she burst into a malicious laugh.
“Oho! I’ve got it!” she cried triumphantly. “You’re upset over that question I put to you—the one you’ve never answered. Well, how about it? Why did she send for Macadam? Oh, I know she never saw him; but why did she send? Explain that if you can.”
She seemed bent on tormenting a victim too proud to retaliate—an instance of stupid brutality which made Tommy’s blood boil. Small wonder it was met by a tone of chilled exhaustion.
“All this is rather baffling. You must give me some better idea of what you mean; but need we discuss it now? It is hardly the place or the time for—”
“Time, time! You do a lot of gassing about Time, don’t you? Take my advice, save it for those lovely, white-livered undergrads of yours—little tin god on a pedestal! It’ll mean something to them—and it’ll mean something to you, too, one of these days, if you don’t keep clear of me. But if you want to go, go! I’m keeping my ammunition till I see the whites of your eyes. . . .”
With a turbulent flounce the wench was gone. As soon as the dignified step had continued its way, Tommy emerged and with some diffidence followed in its wake, so bent on prospecting to left and right that he failed to notice the suit-case set on the bottom tread till he had knocked it over. Supposing the latter to be Jethro’s property—doubtless it contained the books mentioned by Helen—he picked it up to restore it to its former position; but just then the owner came from behind the stairs, hat in hand, and relieved him of it, levelling meanwhile a reserved but keen glance in his direction.
“Thank you, that is mine. I was about to take it with me.”
Easy to read the meaning of that questioning scrutiny. Basil Jethro was sensitively anxious to know if this visitor, suddenly materialised from nowhere, had overheard the mortifying scene just passed. It being impossible to offer verbal reassurance, Tommy smiled detachedly and studied the other with brief, sympathetic curiosity.
What he saw was a man of perhaps fifty, taller than himself, but with the slight stoop and muscular slackness which attend the sedentary life; features of distinction if not actual beauty, above which dark hair threaded with grey receded from a high forehead. The parchment skin, creased all over in delicate lines, must normally be extremely pallid, though at the moment the cheekbones were stained a dull red, outward sign of an annoyance repressed but still rankling. The lips, fuller than might have been expected, puckered towards the centre, suggesting that their owner when a child had probably sucked his thumb. The steady, hooded eyes claimed chief attention. Neither brown nor green but some indefinable colour between the two, they resembled nothing so much as smooth stones veiled by water, and as the photograph had indicated they were Mongol in form, with all the Mongol’s impassivity. A little cold, they had the look of the pure idealist; and the well-bred voice exactly matched them in character.
“Good-evening” it now murmured as the tall figure moved towards the door. Tommy had a fleeting impression of fine, nervous fingers, knotted at the joints, grasping the handle of the suit-case; of a measured but elastic step, and of an impeccably-fitting morning-coat retreating from view.
The door had hardly closed before he became aware of a hard, bold gaze fixed on him from the salon, and realised that the brazen hussy he was prepared to detest had been watching him all the time. But where before had he seen this big overblown girl with the hot brown eyes glistening like an animal’s, the splashes of red like spilled Burgundy in her swarthy cheeks and the strong, sun-darkened arms emerging from apricot chiffon? What was there about the strident exuberance of her good looks, full-blooded and blowsy like fruit too-hastily matured under a tropic sun, which struck a chord in his memory?
“Where did you come from?” she demanded brusquely, then, without pausing for his reply, gave a loud laugh and extended her hand with frank, disarming cordiality. “No, don’t tell me! You’re Helen’s friend. How jolly odd we’ve never met till now.”
He was staring back at her with fascinated intentness.
“We have met, though,” he contradicted urbanely. “In this very room, too, about fifteen years ago. Don’t you remember? You were in your night-gown, very busy, cramming a complete baba au rhum into your mouth. I restored you to your nurse, and you bit my hand.”
She uttered another careless guffaw.
“No—is that so? Sounds like me, anyhow. Greedy and vicious. Well, I still am. Have a cocktail?”
Yes, thought Tommy, watching her big, expansive gestures, she’s just that now, a greedy, wanton child; but in another fifteen years, what will she be?
Nine hours later it sickened him to recall the utter impossibility of envisaging her future. Future? She had none.