Читать книгу Six Days - Glyn Elinor - Страница 5
ОглавлениеTHE INTRODUCTION
Major Lamont looked up as the slender figure came forward to the tea table by which he sat with the hostess. Here was a new flapper was his first thought. He had not remarked her in the smaller drawing-room. Some girl was sitting on a sofa, that was all he had taken in.
No; she was not a flapper. There was not that jaunty air of knowing childishness which the rest affected. She was dressed with greater dignity also, and her skirts were not quite up to her knees. (All this happened in the May of 1921, when those who wanted to be dressed as twelve-year-old kiddies had ample opportunity to indulge their fancy, even if they had seen forty years.)
She was not painted, either—only a little powder—and her lips were innocent of crimson grease. David Lamont was not an out-of-date person. He had no objection to lip-grease, or rouge, or eye black, when they were an improvement, but in a young girl it seemed a treat to see nature again, as nature in this case was beautiful enough to be left alone.
Yes; this was really a lovely creature, whoever she might be, he decided, and he did not feel so bored when the inevitable introduction took place.
Laline, for her part, was full of resentment, and did not analyze that she was resenting the very thing which she had longed for—to meet someone who could make her feel.
For she was thrilling with interest in the newcomer, only that her tactics with men were always to appear indifferent, which had been easy hitherto because it was what she had felt. But now she was not indifferent, and so she had to act, but the unusualness of it all made her nervous, and she said something that was the banal ordinary thing; and Major Lamont answered in like tone, but he watched her.
His black eyes saw through people. He knew she was nervous, and not stupid, and he wondered what had caused this state of mind.
Someone said something about the journey across the Atlantic, and Laline turned to him:
“I am going with my aunt to Europe on the Olympic next Wednesday,” she told him. “It is my first visit over there. I am terribly excited about it.”
So they would be crossing together. But he did not inform her of his plans.
“You are going to Paris, of course?” He said.
“Yes; but why of course?”
“All good Americans—if they are lovely ladies, especially—go to Paris while they live, now, not when they die. It is the Mecca for clothes.”
Laline pouted. There was something faintly contemptuous—or was it only mocking?—in his tones.
“I am crazy to see the art galleries.”
“You are?”
“Why not?”
He smiled. He knew she was becoming annoyed.
“I’ll bet you any amount of money that you will do the Louvre in half an hour, spend one afternoon picnicking at Versailles without going near the palace, and that the rest of the time you’ll be at the races, or the polo, or trying on at the dressmaker’s; and you’ll dance all night in the Bois or at Montmartre.”
Laline’s eyes flashed between the soft lashes.
“If that is what people do in Paris, I shall, of course, follow their lead; it is awful to be a back number. Is that how you spend your time?”
“It depends upon who I am with.”
He looked round at all the pretty, silly faces, and he laughed softly to himself.
Laline had never felt so insulted in her life. He had said nothing impertinent, but it was the light and amused tone and the inference. Here was the first man who plainly was not dazzled by her, and plainly classed her with all the other girls—just one of a foolish bevy of thistledowns.
“Have a cigarette?” she suggested, to hide her annoyance. And she opened her case, a companion one to her vanity box in lapis, with her initials in diamonds.
“I hardly ever smoke,” he answered. “Sometimes a cigar now and then.”
“Don’t you approve of it?”
He did not reply to this, but asked:
“What do you smoke for?”
Laline was nonplussed. She was not quite sure what were her reasons.
“Because it makes you feel good. I can’t do anything until I have had my cigarette,” she blurted out.
“Poor slave!”
Rage was rising in Laline.
“I’m not a slave. I only smoke about ten a day.”
“Yes; you have just admitted it. You can’t do anything until you have had one, therefore the cigarette is the master, not you.”
“I could stop smoking to-morrow if I liked.”
“I should, then; it will be a new experience for you to be a ruler.”
This was more than could be borne. A new experience for her to be a ruler—she, who had ruled everybody all her life!
She told him so, and grew more and more furious at the laugh in his eyes.
“There is obviously one person I am sure you have never succeeded in bringing under your dominion.” He was not looking at her as he said this, but absently at a splendid paradise plume in her aunt’s hat. She followed the direction of his eyes, and laughed.
“Aunty! Oh, you have made a mistake there. I can do just what I please with her.”
David turned now, and his black eyes seemed to see right through her golden head.
“ ‘Aunty’? Oh, the lady with the paradise plume—I wasn’t thinking of her.”
“Who did you mean, then?” defiantly.
“Since you ask, I meant yourself.”
Laline bristled all over.
“I think you are very rude.”
“I am sorry, but you asked me, you know.”
Then he turned away to Mrs. Longton again, and Laline felt as if she should burst into tears. She had never hated anyone so much before, she told herself.
Major Lamont was rising to go. She had gathered he was returning immediately to New York. She would never see him again, most probably, and a good thing. And yet——
“We are going to be at the Ritz-Carlton until we sail. If you want to be rude to me again, you can come, or telephone, and——”
He bowed, and there was an amused smile in his eye, but he did not say if he would come or not.
Mrs. Greening had been conversing with him before Laline entered the room, and she was now effusive in her adieux.
“Why, I’m just crazy about that boy, Laline,” she said as they were motoring back to their mansion. “Ar’n’t you?”
“No, I am not!” snapped her niece. “I think he is just as rude as he can be.”
Major Lamont arrived at the dock early on the Wednesday and went on board the Olympic before the rush began, and he was smoking a quiet cigar on the top deck, where no one noticed him, when, with all the paraphernalia of rich Americans leaving for Europe, Laline and her aunt and Jack Lumley came across the gangway.
“So old Jack’s in tow,” David thought as he watched them. “She probably plays with every man.” And he wondered why the thought irritated him.
Laline had grown more and more annoyed as the days passed at the Ritz-Carlton and no Major Lamont appeared. Perhaps he had not returned after all. Perhaps he was very occupied. Perhaps he did not want to come. But this was too unflattering a thought, and she instantly dismissed it. No man had ever not wanted to come to see her.
David kept out of everyone’s way all that first afternoon, and he was eating his dinner at a secluded corner in the restaurant when the Greening party came in, rather late.
Laline saw him at once with the corner of her eye. Neither Jack nor her aunt had remarked him.
He must have known that he would be crossing with them, and yet he had never said one word in Washington. What a horrid man! It was plain to be seen now that he was deliberately avoiding them. Her cheeks burned with annoyance.
From where she sat—the others had their backs to him—she could look at his profile, all the time unobserved by him. It was a very handsome profile, she was obliged to own, and there was something so very distinguished about him, too. None of that look like so many of her “boys” that she danced with had, as though he stayed up too late and had too many cocktails. His olive skin was eminently outdoor and bronzed and fresh and healthy, and there was no superfluous fat upon him. What on earth could he be thinking of so deeply that he never turned round or looked about him? What was he eating?
Some chicken and salad.
What was he drinking? A pint of champagne.
Of course, he would be finished long before they would. Why had her aunt taken so long to dress?
“Laline, dear, you have not heard a word that I have been saying,” Mrs. Greening remarked plaintively.
“Yes, I have, auntie, but I am interested in this new scene.”
Jack Lumley had been wondering, too, at her silence, though he was accustomed to her moods, and knew it was wiser not to remark upon them.
Yes; Major Lamont was getting up now, and they had not reached their ices yet. He was going through that door into—was it a verandah place where people had coffee, perhaps? He would have his coffee there; so should they. She had better talk now, since she need not watch any longer.
“By the way, Jack, I had always meant to ask you what is the history of the man I saw you speaking to out of Daisy Longton’s window. He came in afterwards, and his name is Major Lamont?”
“Old David! Oh! so you met him. He’s a great pal of mine. We were together in the trenches for a bit.”
“Is he really a soldier, or only a War-time one?”
“No; he wasn’t a soldier before, and afterwards I think he had something to do with the Intelligence; but he is one of the bravest chaps I’ve ever come across. I looked him up in New York, but he was busy all the time. He ought to have been on this ship, but I expect he has been delayed. I have not seen him on board at all.”
Laline could hardly prevent herself saying: “Yes, he is here, and over there in the verandah.”
But she smiled blankly, and changed the conversation.
Why did her aunt want all those strawberries for dessert? It was quite a quarter of an hour since Major Lamont had finished his dinner. It was simply ridiculous to take up so much time in eating.
At last, however, they did move, but when they got into the verandah no David was there. He must have gone on out of the other door.
Laline felt a queer sensation of rage, and soon made an excuse, and led her party through all the saloons, but Major Lamont was not seen again that night.
