VI
“I want you to meet my sister, one day soon,” said Chalfont. “She’s a good sort. You’ll like her.”
“I’m sure I shall,” said Lola. “Will she like me?”
Chalfont laughed and answered the question with a look of complete admiration. Who could help liking a girl so charming, so frank, so cool, whose love of life was so young and so peculiarly unspoilt? “You would do her good,” he said. “Her husband was killed a week before the armistice. She adored him and is a lonely soul. No children, and will never marry again. She’s looking after my place in Devonshire, buried alive. But I’ve persuaded her to come to London and hook on to things a bit and I’ll bring you together one day next week,—if you’re not going to disappear again. Are you?”
Lola shrugged her shoulders. “So far as I know at present, my plans will keep me in town until the end of June.” How could she be more definite than that?
So Chalfont had to be satisfied and hope for the best. It was not his habit to drive people into a corner and force confidences. He had told Lola where he was to be found and she had promised to keep in touch with him. That, at any rate, was good. “We haven’t decided where to go to-night,” he said. “Don’t you think we’d better make up our minds?”
Lola rose from the table. The pleasant dining room at the Carlton was still well-filled, and the band was playing one of those French things with an irresistible march time which carry the mind immediately to the Alcazar and conjure up a picture of an outdoor stage crowded with dancing figures seen through a trickle of cigarette smoke and gently moving branches of young leaves. “Don’t let’s make up our minds what we’ll do till we get to the very doors. Then probably one or other of us will have a brain wave. In any case I’m very happy. I’ve loved every minute of this evening and it’s so nice to be with you again.”
Chalfont touched her arm. He could not resist the temptation. “I’d sell my soul in return for a dozen such nights,” he said, and there was a Simpkins quiver in his voice and a Treadwell look of adoration in his eyes. He was in uniform, having later to return to the Guards encampment in Kensington Gardens. They passed through the almost empty lounge into the hall with its cases of discreet, ruinous jewelry on the walls under gleaming lights, and there a man in plain clothes drew himself up as Chalfont approached and clicked his heels.
“Oh, hello, Ellingham,” said Chalfont. “How are you, my dear chap? Thought you were in India.”
“I was, Sir. Got back yesterday. Curious place, London, by Jove.”
Chalfont turned to Lola. “Madame de Brézé, may I introduce my friend Colonel Ellingham?”
Those tall dark men with a touch of the Oriental in them somewhere—Lola caught her breath, but managed to smile and say the conventional thing.
But at the sound of her voice, the woman who had been standing with her back to them, talking to the obsequious maître d’hôtel, whirled round. It was Feo—Feo with her eyes wide and round and full of the most astonishing mischief and amusement—Feo with her mouth half open as though she were on the point of bursting into a huge laugh. Lola, that discreet little Lola, that little London mouse, niece of the stiff old Breezy, daughter of those little people in Queen’s Road, Bayswater, with a brigadier general, if you please, the famous Sir Peter Chalfont with a comic cork arm to catch whom every match-making mother had spread her net for years!
Without turning a hair, Lola held out her hand impulsively. “My dear,” she said in a ringing voice, “I thought you said that you were going to the Ritz.”
Her own words as she had left her dressing room came back into Feo’s mind. “You’re a jolly good sportsman, child.”—Well, although she could hardly believe her eyes and the incident opened up the widest range of incredulity, she would show this astonishing girl that there were other sportsmen about. “We went to the Ritz,” she replied, as though to one of her “gang,” “but it looked hideously depressing and so we came on here.” And she went forward and put her arm around Lola’s shoulder in her most affectionate way. How well her old frock came out on that charming figure. She suspected the shoes and stockings. “So this is what you do, Lola, when the cat’s away!”
And Lola laughed and said, “Oh, but doesn’t one deserve a little holiday from time to time?”
“Of course,—and you who are so devoted to good causes.”
“The best of causes and the most beautiful.” Lola would return the ball until she dropped.
Feo knew this and had mercy, but there was an amazing glint in her eyes. The little monkey!
It was obvious to Lola that Feo had not met Chalfont or else that she had met him and was not on speaking terms. Either way how could she resist the chance that had been brought about by this extraordinary contretemps. So she said, “Lady Feo, may I introduce my old friend, Sir Peter Chalfont,—Lady Feodorowna Fallaray.”
It so happened that these two had not met,—although Feo’s was not the fault. It was that Chalfont disliked the lady and had gone deliberately out of his way to avoid her acquaintance. He bowed profoundly.—Lola, her name was Lola. What a dear little name.
“We’ve got a box at the Adelphi,” said Feo. “Berry’s funny and Grossmith’s always good. There’s room for four. Won’t you come?” What did she care at the moment whether this invitation made Ellingham’s eyes flick with anger or not. All this was too funny for words.—That little monkey!
“Thanks so much,” said Lola, with a slight drawl, “but it so happens that we’re going round to the House of Commons to hear a debate. Perhaps we can foregather some other night.” And she looked Feo full in the face, as cool as a fish.
It didn’t matter what was said after that. There was a murmur from the other three and a separation, Ellingham marching the laughing Feo away, Chalfont crossing over to the hatroom, greatly relieved. Lola, alone for a moment, stood in the middle of what seemed to be an ocean of carpet under hundreds of thousands of lights, with her heart playing ducks and drakes, but with a sense of thrill and exultation that were untranslatable. “What a sportsman,” she thought.—“But of course she noticed her stockings.”
And when Chalfont returned to her side he said, “I don’t like your knowing that woman. You seem frightfully pally. You didn’t tell me that she was a great friend of yours.”
“Well,” said Lola, “I haven’t told you very much of anything, have I? That’s because I like to hear you talk, I suppose.”
“You draw me out,” said Chalfont apologetically. “But what’s all this about the House of Commons? First I’ve heard of it.”
“Oh, just an idea,” said Lola lightly. “Couldn’t you wangle it?” She had caught the word from him.
“I don’t know a blessed soul in that monkey shop, except Fallaray.”
“Who better?” asked Lola. “Let’s go round, send in your name and ask Mr. Fallaray for a card.”
“My dear Lola—I beg your pardon, I mean, my dear Madame de Brézé—if you remember, Fallaray didn’t know me from Adam that night at the Savoy. I really don’t think I can push myself in like that, if you’ll forgive me. Let’s take a chance at the Gaiety. No one’s going to the theater just now. There’s sure to be plenty of room.”
By this time they were in the street, with a huge commissionaire waiting for a glance from Chalfont to bring up a taxi with his silver whistle. It was another lovely night, clear and warm and windless,—a night that would have been admirable for Zeppelins. Lola went over to the curb and looked up at all the stars and at the middle-aged moon. Think of that light so white and soft on the old gardens of Chilton Park.—“Don’t let’s go in to a fuggy building,” she said. “Let’s walk. London’s very beautiful at night. If you won’t take me to the House of Commons, at any rate walk as far as the Embankment. I want to see the river. I want to see the little light gleaming over Parliament. It’s just a whim.”
“Anything you say,” said Chalfont. What did it matter where they went, so long as they were together? Lola,—so that was her name.