She said, ravished:
"You decipher music like an angel."
And hummed a fragment of the waltz from _The Rosenkavalier_ which he had played for her two evenings earlier. He glanced round sharply. Had she, then, real taste?
"It is like that, isn"t it?" she questioned, and hummed it again, flattered by the look on his face.
While, at her invitation, he repeated the waltz on the piano, whose strings might have been made of zinc, he heard a ring at the outer door and then the m.u.f.fled sound of a colloquy between a male voice and the voice of the Italian. "Of course," he admitted philosophically, "she has other clients already." Such a woman was bound to have other clients. He felt no jealousy, nor even discomfort, from the fact that she lent herself to any male with sufficient money and a respectable appearance. The colloquy expired.
"Ring, please," she requested, after thanking him. He hoped that she was not going to interrogate the Italian in his presence. Surely she would be incapable of such clumsiness! Still, women without imagination--and the majority of women were without imagination--did do the most astounding things.
There was no immediate answer to the bell; but in a few minutes the Italian entered with a tea-tray. Christine sat up.
"I will pour the tea," said she, and to the Italian: "Marthe, where is the evening paper?" And when Marthe returned with a newspaper damp from the press, Christine said: "To Monsieur...."
Not a word of curiosity as to the unknown visitor!
G.J. was amply confirmed in his original opinion of Christine. She was one in a hundred. To provide the evening paper.... It was nothing, but it was enormous.
"Sit by my side," she said. She made just a little s.p.a.ce for him on the sofa--barely enough so that he had to squeeze in. The afternoon tea was correct, save for the extraordinary thickness of the bread-and-b.u.t.ter. But G.J. said to himself that the French did not understand bread-and-b.u.t.ter, and the Italians still less. To compensate for the defects of the bread-and-b.u.t.ter there was a box of fine chocolates.
"I perfect my English," she said. Tea was finished; they were smoking, the _Evening News_ spread between them over the tea-things. She articulated with a strong French accent the words of some of the headings. "Mistair Carlos Smith keeled at the front," she read out.
"Who is it, that woman there? She must be celebrated."
There was a portrait of the ill.u.s.trious Concepcion, together with some sympathetic remarks about her, remarks conceived very differently from the usual semi-ironic, semi-worshipping journalistic references to the stars of Concepcion"s set. G.J. answered vaguely.
"I do not like too much these society women. They are worse than us, and they cost you more. Ah! If the truth were known--" Christine spoke with a queer, restrained, surprising bitterness. Then she added, softly relenting: "However, it is sad for her.... Who was he, this monsieur?"
G.J. replied that he was n.o.body in particular, so far as his knowledge went.
"Ah! One of those who are husbands of their wives!" said Christine acidly.
The disturbing intuition of women!
A little later he said that he must depart.
"But why? I feel better."
"I have a committee."
"A committee?"
"It is a work of charity--for the French wounded."
"Ah! In that case.... But, beloved!"
"Yes?"
She lowered her voice.
"How dost thou call thyself?"
"Gilbert."
"Thou knowest--I have a fancy for thee."
Her tone was delicious, its sincerity absolutely convincing.
"Too amiable."
"No, no. It is true. Say! Return. Return after thy committee. Take me out to dinner--some gentle little restaurant, discreet. There must be many of them in a city like London. It is a city so romantic. Oh! The little corners of London!"
"But--of course. I should be enchanted--"
"Well, then."
He was standing. She raised her smiling, seductive face. She was young--younger than Concepcion; less battered by the world"s contacts than Concepcion. She had the inexpressible virtue and power of youth.
He was nearing fifty. And she, perhaps half his age, had confessed his charm.
"And say! My Gilbert. Bring me a few flowers. I have not been able to go out to-day. Something very simple. I detest that one should squander money on flowers for me."
"Seven-thirty, then!" said he. "And you will be ready?"
"I shall be very exact. Thou wilt tell me all that concerns thy committee. That interests me. The English are extraordinary."
Chapter 13
IN COMMITTEE
Within the hotel the glowing Gold Hall, whose Lincrusta Walton panels dated it, was nearly empty. Of the hundred small round tables only one was occupied; a bald head and a large green hat were almost meeting over the top of this table, but there was nothing on it except an ashtray. A waiter wandered about amid the thick plushy silence and the stagnant pools of electric light, meditating upon the curse which had befallen the world of hotels. The red lips beneath the green hat discernibly moved, but no faintest murmur therefrom reached the entrance. The hot, still place seemed to be enchanted.
The sight of the hotel flower-stall recessed on the left reminded G.J.
of Christine"s desire. Forty thousand skilled women had been put out of work in England because luxury was scared by the sudden vista of war, but the black-garbed girl, entrenched in her mahogany bower, was still earning some sort of a livelihood. In a moment, wakened out of her terrible boredom into an alert smile, she had sold to G.J. a bunch of expensive chrysanthemums whose yellow petals were like long curly locks. Thoughtless, he had meant to have the flowers delivered at once to Christine"s flat. It would not do; it would be indiscreet. And somehow, in the absence of Braiding, it would be equally indiscreet to have them delivered at his own flat.
"I shall be leaving the hotel in about an hour; I"ll take them away myself then," he said, and inquired for the headquarters of the Lechford French Hospitals Committee.
"Committee?" repeated the girl vaguely. "I expect the Onyx Hall"s what you want." She pointed up a corridor, and gave change.
G.J. discovered the Onyx Hall, which had its own entrance from the street, and which in other days had been a cafe lounge. The precious pavement was now half hidden by wooden trestles, wooden cubicles, and cheap chairs. Temporary flexes brought down electric light from a stained gla.s.s dome to illuminate card-indexes and pigeon-holes and piles of letters. Notices in French and Flemish were suspended from the ornate onyx pilasters. Old countrywomen and children in rough foreign clothes, smart officers in strange uniforms, privates in shabby blue, gentlemen in morning coats and spats, and untidy Englishwomen with eyes romantic, hard, or wistful, were mixed together in the Onyx Hall, where there was no enchantment and little order, save that good French seemed to be regularly spoken on one side of the trestles and regularly a.s.sa.s.sinated on the other. G.J., mystified, caught the grey eye of a youngish woman with a tired and fretful expression.
"And you?" she inquired perfunctorily.
He demanded, with hesitation:
"Is this the Lechford Committee?"