Читать книгу The Parts Men Play - Beverley Baxter - Страница 9

'DEAREST LUCIA—I am counting on you for next Friday. A young

American author studying England—I suppose like that Count

Something-or-other in Pickwick Papers—is coming to dinner. I understand he drinks very little, so I am relying on you to thaw him.

'Stackton Dunckley insists upon coming, though I tell him that it is dangerous; and of course people are saying dreadful things, I know. He is so persistent. There will be just half-a-dozen unusual people there, my dear, so don't fail me. Dinner will be at 8.30.—So sincerely, SYBIL DERWENT.

'P.S.—Don't you think you could make Stackton interested in you? Your husband is away so much.'

Madame Carlotti smiled with her teeth and drank some very strong coffee.

'It ees deefficult,' she said, with that seductive formation of the lips used by her countrywomen when speaking English, 'for a magnet to attract putty. Still—there ees the American. At least I shall not be altogether bored.'