The Lonely Unicorn: A Novel

by Alec Waugh

"Did you see that?" whispered Roland excitedly. "She smiled at me, and she's ripping! I must go and speak to her!"

"Don't be a fool," said Gerald; "a smile may not mean anything. Besides, she's obviously not a tart and she may be known here. If she is she won't want to be seen talking to a stranger. You sit still, like a good boy, and see if she smiles at you again."

Against his will Roland consented. But he had his reward a few minutes later when she turned her chair to catch the waitress's attention, and her eyes, meeting his, smiled at them again—a challenging, alluring smile that seemed to say, "Well, are you brave enough?" He was dismayed, however, to notice that she had turned in order to ask for her bill. He saw her run her eye down the slip of paper, take some money from her purse and begin to button on her gloves, long gauntlet gloves that fastened above the elbow.

"She's going! what shall I do?" he asked.

For answer Marston took a piece of paper from his pocket and wrote on it: "Meet me at the Café des Colombes to-night at eight-thirty."

"Now, walk up to the counter and pretend to choose a cake; if she wants to see any more of you she will drop her handkerchief, or purse, or at any rate give you an opportunity of speaking to her; if she does, slip this note into her hand. If she doesn't, you can buy me an éclair, and thank your lucky stars that you've been preserved from making a most abandoned fool of yourself."

Roland was in such a hurry to get to the counter that he tripped against a table and only saved himself from falling by gripping violently the shoulder of an elderly bourgeois. By the time he had completed his apologies his charmer had very nearly reached the door.

"It's all up," he told himself; "she thinks me a clumsy fool, that it's not worth her while to worry about, I ought to have gone straight up to her at once"; and he followed with dejected eyes her progress towards the door.

She was carrying in one hand an umbrella and in the other a little velvet bag. As she raised her hand to open the door, the bag slipped from her fingers and fell upon the floor. There were three persons nearer to the bag than Roland, but before even a hand had been stretched out to it he had precipitated himself forward, had picked it up and was handing it to the lady. She smiled at him with gracious gratitude. So far all had gone splendidly. Then he began to fumble. The note was in the other hand, and in the flurry of the moment he did not know how to manœuvre the bag and the note into the same hand. First of all, he tried to change the bag from the right hand to the left. But his forefinger and thumb were so closely engaged with the note that the remaining three fingers failed to grasp the handle of the bag. He made a furious dive and caught the bag in his right hand just before it reached the floor. Panic seized him. He lost all sense of the proprieties. He handed the bag straight to her, and then realising, before she had had time to take it from him, that somehow or other the note also had to come into her possession, he offered it to her between the forefinger and thumb of his left hand with less secrecy than he would have displayed in giving a tip to a waiter. The sudden change of the lady's expression from inviting kindliness to a surprised affronted indignation threw him into so acute a fever of embarrassment that once again he endeavoured to move the bag from the right hand to the left. Again he fumbled, but with a different result. He piloted the bag successfully into the lady's hands, but allowed the note to slip from between his fingers. It fell face upwards on the floor.