The Tower of Oblivion Part 35

And she who had given that extra spin to the already whizzing wheel of his fate sat there in the Piccadilly, her head a little back, her lips a little parted, her dark eyes sensitised to all the glitter of the room, the fingers of one down-hung hand moving in time to Raquel's song.

Suddenly I broke in on her mood.

"Julia. As a practical matter. How do you suppose he got to France? It isn't easy for a man without papers of any kind, you know."

"Oh, he'd get there if he wanted to," she answered, the fingers still beating time.

"Easy enough to talk, but we may as well look at the practical side of it. _He'll_ have to."

"If you mean his money, that's very nice of you, George, but I thought that was all arranged? Or do you mean that as he used to write to me before he may do so again? If that's it you can hand his money over to me."

"I wasn't thinking of that. I was thinking----"

But she interrupted me vivaciously. "Oh, look at that woman in the cloak just getting up! That's _ra_ther a wrap, isn't it? And I wonder whether I could wear those shoes!... Now that's what I call having the best of both worlds, George. She's all the advantages of that flapper with the nice fair-haired boy there--the one smoking a cigarette and showing her garters--as well as being a woman. But perhaps she isn't your type. Men do run to types, don't they?... George, you're not listening. I asked you whether men ran to types."

"If you mean do I, you've had most of my time lately."

"Don't be silly. I mean women men are in love with. Or are you all ready to toy with anything that comes along?"

"I thought that you said the end of that man was that he knew nothing about women."

"Oh, what's the use of telling me what I used to say!" She tossed the little cap with the owl's ears. "At any rate I don't talk the same folly twice. Life's too short. Do you like my hat?"

"Very charming."

"Not absurd on me? Nor the way I've done my hair for it? I'm not mutton-dressed-as-lamb? And you haven't seen my shoes----"

Round the leg of her chair she pushed a suede sheath slender as one of the willow-leaves on my pond.

"I do hold my own? Among all these smooth hairs and pretty complexions?

I haven't got a touch of powder on; do you think I should? Don't natter; honestly; should I be all right if I met Derry?"

I looked at her without smiling. "Which Derry?" I asked.

"Oh, any Derry! Derry at his maddest, his wildest! Tell me, George: if I'd had just one grain of sense before instead of being a sloppy art-student he only remembered once in six months, all flat heels and hair in her eyes, thinking that by cutting sandwiches ... don't you think, George? Mightn't it have made a _wee_ bit of difference? And won't it still when----"

"When what?"

"Oh--any moment! Who knows?"

I tried to break the current of her infatuated fancies. "Julia, don't you think----" But her eyes laughed me down.

"Think, George!... But this _is_ thinking! You've no idea of the amount of brainwork there is in it! Oh, I'm not talking about rubbishy books and pictures now! Why, this is all the thinking I've ever done!"

"I was going to ask you whether you thought that things with him were--going quicker than they ought to, let us say."

"Not if they bring him back to me."

"But you let him go away."

"Oh, on his Wanderjahre. I dare say that's all over by now."

"Then you do think he may have--speeded up?"

"It wouldn't surprise me."

"Why wouldn't it?"

"Nothing would surprise me."

"But this particular thing?"

She shook with soft laughter. "Oh, George, some nice steady-going woman--like I used to be--ought to adopt you.... Why, you stupid, as if I wasn't _willing_ him to speed up, as you call it, with every particle that's in me, if only I can manage to be somewhere at hand when he gets there!"

I gave her a quick look. "Do you mean that you're going to slip over to France after all?" I demanded.

"No. Wasn't thinking of it. As far as I know at present I shall just stay here. But," she said meaningly, "if I were going anywhere it wouldn't be France."

"Where would it be?"

"Belgium."

"Belgium's about the last place anybody with his war-experience would go to for a holiday."

"What, Antwerp in August?"

"I don't see. Sorry."

"Aren't they holding the Olympic games there?"

"_Ah!..._ So you think they might draw him?"

"I didn't say so. I don't know as a matter of fact that I should go to Antwerp either. But you once asked me whether I thought I could bring him by just sitting still and loving him. Well"--a victorious smile--"I almost believe I could--now. But I shouldn't cut him sandwiches--now. I shouldn't be just somebody he remembered when he was at a loose end--now. I'd have him keen, George-old-Thing. He'd think anything I gave him a devil of a favour. Look at that wise young minx with the garters there; I'd have him to heel as she has her boy. Look, she's having a c.o.c.ktail. Order me a c.o.c.ktail, please."

"Which? Martini? Manhattan? Bronx?"

"I dunno. Never tasted one in my life. But I'm not too proud to learn.

And--Geordie"--she shot a sidelong glance at me--"I've half a mind to begin practising on you!"

"Well--if that will keep you from practising on anybody else----"

"You think you'd be safe, George?"

"Wretchedly safe."

All at once the hectic manner seemed to fall from her. A little incision appeared for a moment between her brows. She pressed it away again with her fingers.

"I suppose so," she said quietly. "You can't say ours isn't an extraordinary relation. It's safe to say there's nothing like it in this room."