Читать книгу The Parts Men Play - Beverley Baxter - Страница 42

The soup appeared. Monsieur Beauchamp stood by with the attitude of an artist watching the hanging of his first painting in the Academy.

'You might let me see the wine list,' said Selwyn.

Monsieur Beauchamp struck an attitude of horror. Had it come to this in the Café Rouge, that a patron must ask for the wine list? Brandishing his arms, he rushed from the table, almost colliding with the little waitress, flew downstairs to the very farthest table near the door, seized a wine card, and puffing generously, arrived with the trophy at the table, much as Rothschild's messenger must have reached London with the news that the British were winning at Waterloo. Having then succeeded in making the American order a red wine when he wanted white, Monsieur Beauchamp withdrew in a state of histrionic self-satisfaction.

With a smile of relief Selwyn looked across the table at the girl. Even in the soft glow of the lamp, which made for flattery, it seemed to him that the vivacity of the morning had disappeared, and in its place was the petulance of the previous evening. Her eyes, which seemed when they were riding to have caught something of the alchemy of the skies, were steady and lighter in shade. Again he noticed the suggestion of discontent about the mouth, and the upper lip looked thin and lacking in colour.

'It is your turn to-night to be pensive,' she said.

'I was thinking,' he answered, 'that it is hardly twenty-four hours since we met, and yet I have as many impressions of you as an ordinary woman would give in six months. For instance, last night when you entered the room'——

'But, Mr. Selwyn, any girl knows enough to arrive late when there is no woman within twenty years of her age in the room. The effect is certain.'

There was no humour in her voice, but just a tone of weary, world-wise knowledge. A look of displeasure clouded his face.

'Surely,' he said, 'with your qualities and appearance, you don't need such an elaborate technique.'

'In a world where there is so little that is genuine, why should I debar myself from the pleasure of being a humbug?'

'Come, come,' he said, smiling, 'you are not going to join the ranks of

England's detractors?'

She shrugged her shoulders. 'I'm certainly not going to become a professional critic like Stackton Dunckley, who hasn't even the excuse that he's an Irishman; or Lucia Carlotti, who hardly ever leaves London because her dinners cost her nothing. But I reserve the right of personal resentment.'