On this day it was Leilah who surprised him.
Since he had called to her from the garden, she had encountered him only in the hazards of entrances and halls. On such occasions she had passed with an air of being unaware that there were anything save chairs and tables about.
In part, it was this attitude which he thought certain solitudes might change. Oddly enough, Leilah herself wished it altered. But to want to do one thing and to do something else, happens to all of us, even to the best. She despised Barouffski and yet in despising him knew that the one contemptible thing is contempt. For what he had done, she felt that no punishment could be too severe, yet in so feeling she knew that he was only the embodiment of past misdeeds of her own. Physically he had struck her. Spiritually, it was her own hand that had dealt the blow. He had loosed the dogs on Verplank and she had judged and condemned him for it, though she knew that not only she should not judge at all, but that never perhaps do useless events occur. Clearly these events were evil, but were not those which she planned evil too?
In this dilemma there was some slight consolation for her in the knowledge that it was not her fault, at least not her present fault, that she had been born with a nature so problematic. But the Vidya, in teaching her that whatever we suffer is derived from our past; that the people who wrong us—or seem to—are mere puppets come to claim karmic debts which we owe; the Vidya, in teaching her that taught her also that every life we lead here is but a day in school. Her schooling, she felt, had as yet been insufficient. No doubt she would know better when she came here again.
The thin gilt hope of that fortified her a little on this day when, to Barouffski’s surprise, she sent for him and then, her head raised, said distantly:
“The Helley-Quetgens have asked us to the Opéra. I am going. You are free to do as you like.”
Here, obviously, was something new. At it and at her Barouffski looked with shifting eyes. Uncertainly he rubbed his hands.
“But how then! I am at your orders. It is a festival to be where you are.”
But as he did nothing without an object, he wondered what hers was. Obviously, there was a reason. Yet, what? Could it be an olive branch? He was too adroit to ask. Even otherwise, he lacked the opportunity. Leilah had gone from the room.
It was in these circumstances that, on this night, she appeared at the Opéra where Violet was complaining at having seen her with d’Arcy.
At the complaint, Silverstairs pulled at his moustache.
“I did not know that she had taken up with him.”
“I don’t know that she has either. But she was with him today in the Champs Élysées.”
“Oh, come now! Things haven’t got to such a pass that a woman can’t be seen with a man—”
“No, but no honest woman can be seen alone with d’Arcy. Leilah ought to know better. She ought to know better too than to go to the Ritz. As she does not appear to, I propose to tell her.”
“Do as you like,” replied Silverstairs who would have said the same thing no matter what his wife had suggested. The lady had not entirely Americanised this Englishman but she had at least made him realise the futility of argument.
“Do as you like,” he repeated. “There are the Orlonnas. There are the Zubaroffs.”
At once to the quick click of an ouvreuse’s key, the door opened and Tempest appeared, a foulard showing above his coat.
While he removed these things Violet called at him:
“You’re late.”
Silverstairs laughed. “He always is. At Christ Church he was known as the late Lord Howard.”
Tempest moved forward and sat down between them.
But now, to the volatile sweetmeats of the score, the curtain was falling. In the stalls there was a movement. Men stood up, put their hats on, turned their back to the stage or set forth for a chat with the vestals in the green room.
Silverstairs also stood up.
Violet turned to him:
“I do wish you would look in on the Helley-Quetgens, and ask Leilah to come to luncheon tomorrow. Say I have a bone to pick with her. That may fetch her, if nothing else will.”
Tempest ran a hand through his vivid hair.
“A bone over what, if I may ask? You may not know it, but I greatly admire Madame Barouffska.”
Violet smiled.
“She’s a dear. But I saw her today with d’Arcy, and I propose to scold her for it.”
Tempest showed his teeth.
“D’Arcy is not a man’s man, though he certainly is a woman’s. Yet, when you come to that, not such a woman as Madame Barouffska. What an odd thing that was about her first husband!”
“You mean about the dogs?”
“Yes. I never got the rights of it. What was he doing there? Is she living in the past?”
Violet raised her opera-glass.
“She would be very lucky if she could be; living in the present is so expensive, don’t you think?”
Again there was a quick click. The door opened. Silverstairs, filling the entrance with his tall stature, reappeared.
“Violet,” he began, “the Helley-Quetgens are going on to some dance in the Faubourg, and Leilah wants the three of us to sup with her at Paillard’s. What do you say?”
Violet laughed. “I say it will be just my chance.” She turned to Tempest. “You will come?”
“Thanks, yes. Isn’t that de Fresnoy with the Zubaroffs?”
Silverstairs, without sitting down, raised his glass.
“Yes, and I was
