Читать книгу A Joyous Adventure - Baroness Orczy - Страница 11
Chapter 9
ОглавлениеThis interlude occurred during the small hours of the morning. It was after that, that the fun waxed fast and furious. The ladies of Society, for the most part, went home soon after supper, for this was an age when it was no disgrace for any gentleman, young or old, to drink more than was good for him, and with half the gilded youth of London in its cups, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, an hour or two after midnight, was no longer a proper place for any save frisky young matrons.
Saint-Denys took his leave of Lady de Genneville at the door of her coach. He raised her hand to his lips. She pressed the hand that held hers.
“You will come to my rout to-morrow, Martin?” she murmured with a wistful little sigh.
“Your ladyship will excuse if...”
“Martin!” she entreated.
“Dear lady,” he rejoined, “I am such poor company.”
“But why? In Heaven’s name, why?”
“I know not. I think I am sick of life.”
“Did I not know you for a stony-hearted egoist, my friend,” Charmion de Genneville said with sudden earnestness, “I would begin to think that you were suffering from unrequited love.”
“You would be right. Am I not in love with you?”
“Do not mock, Martin. I am serious.”
“Serious? When you deign to think that I am wallowing in an unfortunate love affair! I only wish I were, it might prove amusing.”
“You are incorrigible,” she said. “Go back in there,” she added, pointing to the foyer of the playhouse, which at this hour seemed like a veritable pandemonium with women giggling and shrieking, men shouting or singing bibulous songs, with the dense crowds swaying and swirling and twirling in the mad intoxication of pleasure and of noise.
“Flint and the others will miss you.”
“Flint and the others bore me to distraction.”
“Then come home with me.”
“If I thought Sir Timothy was from home...”
“He is not. He is at home with his tisane and his gout.”
“Well, then?”
“Well, then, what will you do?”
“Go home.”
She smiled. “And so to bed?”
“Not I. I have work to do.”
This time she laughed. “Work?” she exclaimed. “You?”
“Serious work.”
“Such as?”
“I must sign my name one hundred times before the crack of dawn.”
“Sign your name a hundred times? Whatever for?”
“Important papers...”
“What papers?”
“You shall see for yourself, fair lady.”
“When?”
“To-morrow. When you have risen from your rest and finished your toilet you shall know all about it.”
She was about to insist when the uniformed porter’s stentorian voice broke in on this intimate little colloquy.
“Lady de Genneville’s carriage stops the way.”
It was the signal for her ladyship’s carriage to make way for others, and Saint-Denys had only the fraction of a minute in which to imprint a last kiss on the pretty ungloved hand which rested on the portiére, and then to step back quickly as the elegant barouche with its C springs and silver harness gave a sudden lurch and slowly drove away.
