Читать книгу The Parts Men Play - Beverley Baxter - Страница 25

On this Friday night of November in the year 1918, Lady Durwent sat by the fire in the drawing-room and discussed music with Norton Pyford. Having sacrificed his watch on the altar of art, he had been compelled to rely on appetite, with the result that he arrived just as eight was striking. Lady Durwent did her best, but as she knew nothing of music, nor he anything of anything else, the situation was becoming difficult, when the entrance of Madame Carlotti brought welcome relief.

That lady was wearing a yellow gown rather too tight for her, so that her somewhat ample flesh slightly overran the confines of the garment, giving the effect that she had grown up in the thing and was unable to shed it. This impression was heightened by a mannerism, repeated frequently during the evening, of grasping her very low bodice with her hands, exhausting her breath, pulling the bodice up, and compressing herself into it. It was an innocent enough performance, but invariably left the feeling that she should retire upstairs to do it.

She wore a yellow flower in her hair; her stockings were a rich yellow with a superimposed pattern like strands of fine gold, and her dainty feet were enclosed in a pair of bronzed shoes. As her lips were heavily carmined and her eyes brilliantly dark, Madame Carlotti's was a distinctly illuminating presence.

But the sunniness of her entrance was dimmed by the lack of audience. She had not expended her genius to throw it away on a strangely dressed young man whose hair fell straight and black over a large collar that had earned a holiday some days before, and whose velvet jacket was minus two buttons, the threads of which could still be seen, out-stretched, appealing for their owners' return.

'Lucia, my dear,' said Lady Durwent, just like an ordinary hostess, 'you look' (sotto voce) 'simply wonderful! I think you have met Mr. Norton Pyford, the Norton Pyford, haven't you?'

'Hah d' ye do?' said the Pyford.

'Chairmed,' minced Madame Carlotti.

'Lucia, take this chair by the fire. You must be frozen.'

'Ah, grazie, Sybil. What a perfectly meeserable climate you have in this London!'

'Just what I tha-a-y,' bleated Mr. Pyford, sinking into his chair in an apparently boneless heap. 'The other night, at a fella's thupper-party, I'——