Tall as a tree, his hat swinging lazily in his hand near his thigh, he lounged on. …
“Sickening,” he murmured.
Bus after bus, laden with the people from the theatres, thundered past us and up and down the switchback, embracing us with waves of heat so that one’s very skin felt like a sticky garment. …
“Yes,” I said.
“London’s all right,” said Guy thoughtfully, “as London. …”
“Of course,” I said, “as London. …”
The wide sweep of Hyde Park Corner lay ahead of us like a bright handkerchief in the night. The buses trumpeted across it and around it and down it and up it, but one and all looked as snails beside Bus No. 16, which is beyond compare the fastest bus in London, making the voyage from Grosvenor Place to Hamilton Place and back again at a speed to astonish the eye of man.
The din that night makes in closing its doors on London was as though muted by the still, stifling air, and I envied the lofty calm of the Duke of Wellington where he rides forever amid his pleasaunce of small trees. The lights or Constitution Hill glowed like fireflies between the leafy valley of the Green Park and the dark gardens of His Majesty the King.
“Trouble about London is,” said Guy thoughtfully, “that people are always expecting it to be Paris or Rome or some other place. Always wanting something else, people are. …”
“Anything,” I agreed, “so long as it’s not their own. …”
“That’s about it,” Guy murmured. “Sickening. …”
We thought about that for a while.
“Guy, one almost might go down to some part of the river. Near Maidenhead. Now. And swim.”
“Haven’t been to Maidenhead,” Guy reflected deeply, “well, it must be ten years. Difficult, isn’t it, to realise it’s almost ten years since that war started? I haven’t been—let me see—not since the night that poor boy got himself drowned. …”
“Only an hour or so by car,” I said, “and you can relive your youth.”
A smile flickered across the stern, small profile. “A long time to waste to relive a wasted youth. What about a game of squash instead? Makes us enjoy a drink. Come along.”
And so it came to pass that we bathed quite differently than in the river by playing squash-racquets by electric-light. Guy has a court in the basement of his house, and when he beats you, which is always, he says: “Sickening.”
“Where,” I asked, when we had bathed sufficiently and were enjoying long tumblers of the stuff that such good jokes are made from, whilst from upstairs came the faint notes of a piano and a thing they call a saxophone, for Lady de Travest was “throwing” a small party; “where are we dining tomorrow night? And, now I come to think of it, why this sudden children’s party?”
Guy had happened on Venice playing tennis the other day, when she had said she was feeling perhaps a little depressed. “The heat,” she had said. …
“Whereupon,” said Guy, imitating Cherry-Marvel, “it came to me as not a bad idea if we had a party for the child. Real good girl, Venice. Hope that young man of mine will find someone only half so good. …”
“Yes,” I said.
“Be a sort of family party, I thought. Hugo and Shirley, Napier and Venice, some clean and wholesome young woman I’ll find for you, while I, thank the Lord, will be odd man out. But as to where we should dine. …”
“In this heat. …”
“God, yes, too hot for dancing. Just listen to them upstairs! Even the ceiling’s sweating. …”
The faint, slow lilt of the tango, pleasantest of all dances but one that is so seldom danced in London because nobody in London can dance it, which seems a pity. …
“Might almost dine here,” Guy murmured, “if Moira doesn’t want the place. And we might, now you’ve suggested it, and if it’s still so hot, go and bathe somewhere afterwards instead of sitting up in some stuffy place till all hours. See how we feel about it, and if Venice would enjoy that. …”
“Imagine Venice not enjoying that!”
“Well, we’ll see,” said Guy, but more seriously now. “If we do, it will mean no cocktails before dinner, no more than a glass of wine apiece over dinner, and not a thimbleful after. I’m not going to have that river play any more tricks on my friends, I can tell you.”
“And decency, Guy, will be more than served, for there’s no moon and the nights are pitch-black. …”
“That’s right,” said Guy thoughtfully, and then, as he saw me to the door, he said thoughtfully: “By the way, you any idea if Venice has ever met Iris?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “But I’m not sure. …”
There is never any harm in saying one isn’t sure. One should never be sure, conversationally.
“I just had an idea,” Guy murmured, looking out over the heavy trees of the great square, “that Iris might conceivably be passing through London, as I heard from Eve Chalice today that old Portairley was lying near death. The last Portairley, dear, dear.”
“Gerald won’t be sorry to have missed his turn, I’ve no doubt.”
“Poor young devil! But what I was thinking of was, just in case Iris is in London, that we might get her for the third woman tomorrow night. …”
“Oh,” I said. “I see. …”
“You’d quite like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Oh, I’d like it!”
“Just had an idea,” Guy murmured vaguely, “that she and Venice might meet, if they haven’t already met, and see how they like each other. That is, if Iris is in London. Different types … you never know. Tell Iris, if by any chance you hear anything of her tomorrow. My idea, tell her. …”
“All right, if she should give me a ring. Good night, Guy.”
“Good night, boy. Sorry about the squash. Sickening. My idea, tell her.”
As I looked back from that wide corner of Belgrave Square which sweeps suavely up to Hyde Park Corner, I could see the very tall figure of the friend of his friends still framed against the lighted doorway. Across the four open windows above him figures passed slowly.
But what, what in
