“You look very white,” she said.
“Now, Lady Pynte!” I made to mock her, and I suppose we laughed. Then she was at the wheel, sunk into the low seat, staring up at the darkness of the faint London stars. “I’m tired,” she said again, and again I thought, what could I do? Then she did something to the dashboard with her left hand, and the engine hummed. I was on the curb, above her. Nearby a policeman was flashing his lamp on a door. I supposed one told the police. …
“Will you see Gerald in the morning?” the slightly husky voice just reached me. “And tell him to follow me to Paris? I shall be at number—Avenue du Bois for a week or so, and then … Goodbye,” she said sharply, as though impatient with herself. “Goodbye, dear. You’ve been very kind—to the twin Marches. Goodbye … perhaps for a long time. You have your work in England, and I’m the slave of freedom. Goodbye, my friend.”
I could not tell her just then. She lay aslant in the driving seat, and her tawny curls flamed in the light, and she looked sad and tired. I could not tell her, and as she took her hand from mine the great car leapt down the fat little slope of East Chapel Street to the end, turned in a blaze of light and colour, rushed up the parallel little street to Curzon Street.
I was at the corner where I had last seen Gerald putting his shoulder against the saloon-door of The Leather Butler; and as Iris’s car turned into Curzon Street a two-seater passed me swiftly, going the same way. I thought I heard a cry of “Iris!” above the rustle of the two engines, and I thought I heard Iris’s surprised voice, and the rear-lights of the two cars seemed to draw together, but I was not sure.
I crossed towards Queen Street, sure only that I wished to see Guy. From Jolley’s corner I saw, far up, two red rear-lights twisting into South Audley Street, and then, from afar, came the scream of a Klaxon, the growl of a horn. I wondered who was in the two-seater, but at that moment the tall figure of Guy came towards me from my door, where a taxi had just dropped him. “Sorry,” he murmured. “Poor young devil. Only hope the other side won’t disappoint him as much.”
“I couldn’t tell her,” I said.
Guy smoked thoughtfully, looking over my head. “I’ll tell her,” he said, “in the morning. Had an idea he might blow his brains out.”
V
The Dark Letter
I
On a bitter afternoon in the last week of January of the year 1923 the writer found himself in the Place Vendôme in Paris.
Now here, in the Place Vendôme, is material ready to the hand of the as yet undiscovered chronicler of lofty frivolities: such, unfortunately, as am not. But I can, at least, count up to fifty. There were forty-eight motorcars in the Place Vendôme, and one coach-and-six.
The Place Vendôme is a paradox in grey stone. Spacious, noble, monumental, it is cast, even at the stranger’s first glance, in an everlasting mould. The Place Vendôme is, without a doubt, one among the few things about which we may say with certainty: “That will last.” And yet, monumental and everlasting though it is, what do we find in the Place Vendôme? Do we find therein the practice of the seven arts, the learning of the nine humanities, the study of any one among the august array of sciences, nay, the application of any one among the Ten Commandments? We do not. We find forty-eight motorcars and one coach-and-six. We find that it is given over only to the frivolities of the trivial of two worlds and to every sort of “high-minded depravity” that may occur to the enfeebled wits of the exquisite. We find, in other words, that the Place Vendôme is the centre of that floating population of a few thousand dressing-tables, sables and Cachets Faivre of which, under the lofty title of l’aristocratie internationale, the Chevalier Gilulio di Risotto is the ultimate servitor. The Place Vendôme is, therefore, no place for a plain man, nor by any means a safe station for the man in the street: there are motorcars kept in readiness to run them over.
Across the Place, from the rue de la Paix to the rue de Castiglione, dash forever the nimble green Citroën taxicabs; whilst from the rue de Castiglione to the rue de la Paix will march the Renaults de luxe with scarlet wheels, passing in a fancy of cool brown eyes and the poudre à la maréchale of Bourbon days. Here and there among them, maybe, will flash the racing Bugattis of the dark young men a gigolo, a rastacouère, a “racingman.” They will come to no good.
And always the great column on which Napoleon stands rises to the clouds, but no one cares about that. All they care about are the forty-eight automobiles and one coach-and-six which stretch, in ordered array of two lines, from the foot of his column to the entrance of the Ritz. The shops are loaded with diamonds as large as carnations and with carnations as expensive as diamonds. The shopkeepers are very polite, and courteously do not mind how many you buy. Americans buy. Englishmen watch the Americans buying. Grand Dukes wait for the Englishmen to dare them to have a cocktail. A few Frenchmen are stationed at those strategic points where they can best be rude to the English and Americans. Then the English and Americans tip them. The women do not wear stays, and insist on their men shaving twice a day.
“Well, at last!” sighed my sister, as her car, colourless with dust, was added to the forty-eight.
