'Va-t-en, menteur!' scoffs she, so I sat on my hands and she consented warily. I knew it was all I was fit for, and made the most of those sweet lips for the few seconds she permitted before she broke away, gratifyingly pink and breathless.
'Bon,' says she, and drew some papers from her reticule. 'Then I may safely sit by you while you read to me from the present I have brought for you. I coaxed them from an English tourist in the town, pretending an interest in your culture Anglaise. His wife, I think, was not amused.' She sat on my chair arm, allowing me to put a hand round her waist, and laid the papers in my lap. 'What do you say … `for old times' sake', non?'
'Oh, my God!' says I. They were copies of Punch. 'You cruel little monster! Reminding me of the last time, when you know I’m in no state to explain `hankey-pankey' to you!'
'Attention!' She rapped my wrist. 'I know all about that, but I do not know what is amusing about M. Gladstone dancing in the dress of a sailor, or your policemen being given whistles to blow—ah, yes, or why your sacre M. Paunch has such malice against us in France, with his bad jokes about Madagascar and La Chine and M. de Lesseps, and oh! such fun about Frenchmen playing your blooded cricket—'
'Bloody, dearest, not blooded. And t’ain’t ladylike to—'
'Ah, yes, and here—further insult!' She stabbed an indignant fingernail at the page. 'France is drawn as an ugly old paysanne with fat ankles and abominable clothes—but who is this divine being, so beautiful and elegant of shape in her fine drapery? What does she represent, ha? The Manchester Ship Canal! Quelle absurdite!'
'Oh, come, France is mostly a peach in our cartoons. And we’ve always made fun of you, ever since Crecy and Joan of Arc and whatnot—but you do the same to us, don’t you?'
'Sans blague! An example, then?'
'Well, look at Phileas Fogg, a prize muff if ever there was one! That man Verne is never done sniping at us … aye, those two British officers in that twaddling book about a comet hitting the earth, what a pair of muttonheaded by-joves they are! Pompous, ill-tempered caricatures, all whiskers and haw-haw and crying ’Balderdash!' '
'And that is not true?' says she, all innocence.
'Course it’s not! Stuff and nonsense! Nothing like us!' At which she began to giggle and flicked my whiskers in a marked manner. I could only growl and point out that at least I wasn’t in the habit of crying 'Balderdash!' or 'Haw-haw!'[21]
So we passed a pleasant hour, soon discarding Punch and talking about anything and everything except the past few days. I told her about Egypt and Zululand, and she talked of the places she had visited in the course of her work—Rome and Athens and Constantinople and Cairo—but never a word of the work itself. Fashions, food, customs, society doings, men (whom she seemed to find comic, mostly), shops, hotels, and journeys: we compared notes about them all, and even found acquaintances in common, like Liprandi, to whom I’d surrendered, rather informally, at Balaclava, and whom she’d waltzed with at St Petersburg, and the big Sudanese with tribal cuts on his face who kept the Cigale cafe in Alex—and Blowitz, naturally, was an amusing topic.
I wasn’t sorry, though, when supper-time came. Tete-a-tete is ail very jolly, but when you know dam' well your voluptuous vis-a-vis is a cul-de-sac, and she sits on your chair-arm with her udders in your ear and a bare shoulder begging to be nibbled and her perfume conjuring erotic notions, and you daren’t stir a lecherous finger for fear of bursting the needlework in your navel and suffering the indignity of having her remove your blood-sodden britches and upbraid you for a foresworn satyr, none of which will do a thing for your future amorous relations … well, it’s trying, I can tell you. Le pauvre M. Tantaloose didn’t know what frustration was. Ne’er mind, thinks I, we’ll make up for this in Paris presently. Kralta’ll keep.
It was quite like old times to sit across the table from her in candlelight, tucking into the cold ham and fruit and Bernkastler, she chattering gaily and I sitting easy and admiring the highlights on the dark curls, and the perfect ivory curves of chin and neck and shoulder. I could have imagined we were back in the Jager Strasse, except for a brief moment when she peeled a plum and presented it to me, laughing, on a fork … and I thought of those dainty fingers with their polished nails coiled round a sabre hilt, and of the hidden strength of the slender white arm—but when I looked, the smiling lips and merry eyes were those of the Caprice I knew so well, exclaiming 'Oh-la, gauche!' when I dropped the fork, and a moment later rising and gleaming at me over the rim of her glass as she proposed a toast to our reunion.
'I’ve a better toast than that,' says I, halting round the table and nuzzling her neck. 'To our next meeting, when this dam' scratch of mine has healed.' She clinked glasses, but said nothing. I asked when she was going back to Paris.
'Tomorrow, helas! We go one at a time, ever so discret, Delzons last of all. Either he or M. Hutton will remain until you are well enough to travel, and then this house will be closed, and the operation will be over.' She turned away and put her glass on the mantel, her back to me. 'You will return to London?'
'Oh, no hurry. Time for a week or two in Paris, then we’ll see.' I stepped close to kiss her on the nape of the neck, and she glanced round.
'Why Paris?' says she lightly.
'Why d’you think?' says I, and slipped my hands round to clasp her breasts. She shivered, and then very gently she removed my hands and turned to face me, smiling still, but a touch wary.
'That might … be difficult,' says she. 'I do not think that Charles-Alain would approve. And I am sure his family would not.'
'Charles who?'
'Charles-Alain de la Tour d’Auvergne,' says she, and the smile had an impish twinkle to it. 'My husband. I have been Madame de la Tour d’Auvergne for six months now.'
I must have looked like a fish on a slab. 'Husband! You—married? My stars above! Well, blow my boots, and you never let on—'
'Blow your boots, you never noticed!' laughs she, holding up her left hand, and there was the gold band, sure enough.
'Eh? What? Well, I never do … I mean, I didn’t see … well, I’ll he damned! Of all things! Here, though, I must kiss the bride!' Which I did, and would have made a meal of it, but she slipped away, squeaking at me to mind my wound, and taking refuge behind the table. I bore up, grinning at her across the board.
'Why, you sly little puss! Le chaton, right enough! Well, well … still, it makes no odds.' She looked startled. 'Oh, I’ll still come to Paris, never you fret—he don’t have to know, this de la Thingamabob ! '
It was her turn to stare, and then, would you believe it, she went into whoops, and had to sit down in the armchair, helpless with laughter. I asked what was the joke, and when she’d drawn breath and dabbed her eyes, she shook her head at me in despair.
'Oh, but you are the most dreadful, adorable man! No, he would not have to know … but I would know.' She sighed, smiling but solemn. 'And I have made my vows.'
'Strewth! You mean … it’s no go—just ’cos you’re married?' 'No go,' says she gently. 'Ah, cheri, I am sorry, but … you do understand?'
'Shot if I do!' And I didn’t, for ’twasn’t as though she was some little bourgeois hausfrau—dammit, she was French, and had sported her bum and boobies in the Folies for the entertainment of lewd fellows and rogered with the likes of Shuvalov pour la patrie, and myself and God knew how many others for the fun of it … and her behaviour this evening hadn’t been married-respectable, exactly, dressed to the seductive nines and kissing indecorously.
I remarked on this, and she sighed. 'Oh, if you had been well, I would not have come, knowing you would wish to make love … but knowing you were blesse, and unable to …' She gestured helplessly. 'Oh, you know … I thought we might talk and be jolly, as we used to be, but without … oh, `hankey-pankey'.' She shrugged in pretty apology, and suddenly her face lit up. 'Because those were such happy days in Berlin! Oh, not only making love, but being comfortable and laughing and talking—and I wished to see you once again, and remember those times, and see if you had changed—and, oh, I am so glad to find that you have not!' She rose and put a hand to my face and pecked me on the cheek. 'But I have, you see. I am Madame de la Tour d’Auvergne now, ever so respectable.' She pulled a face. 'No more la gaie Caprice. I change myself, I change my life … and, helas, I must change my old friends. So it is better you do not come to Paris … Do you mind very much? You are not angry?'
A number of women have had the poor taste and bad judgment to give me the right about. In my callow youth I resented it damn-ably, and either thrashed ’em (as with Judy, my guv’nor’s piece), or went for ’em with a sabre (Narreeman, my flower of the Khyber), or ran like hell (Lola of the blazing temper and flying crockery). In later years you learn to assume indifference while studying how to pay them out, supposing you care enough. With Caprice, I’d have been piqued, no more … if I’d believed her laughable excuse, which I did not for a moment. She, a
