“I do,” she said. “Mad, isn’t it? ‘That crazy woman Feo on the rampage again.’ Is that what you’re thinking?”
“Something like that,” he answered, and smiled at her. He felt queerly and charmingly young that night and lenient and rather in sympathy with madness. The Cromwellianism in which he had wrapped himself had fallen temporarily from his shoulders. He put his hand under her elbow and brought her up to the top step on a level with himself.
“My God,” thought Lady Feo, “the man’s alive for once. He tingles. I must be looking well.” What did it matter if Leo Kirosch was singing and she would miss his songs? It was much better sport to stand on the steps of that old building and flirt with her husband. She took his arm and stood close against him and looked up into his face with her most winning smile. “It gave me the shock of my life to see you here,” she said. “I didn’t know that you had a penchant for these suburban orgies. Who are you with?”
“My mother and Aunt Betsy.”
Under any other circumstances Feo would have thrown back her head and laughed derisively. Those two old birds. Instead of which she snuggled a little closer just to see the effect. It was ages since she had treated this man to anything in the nature of familiarity, in fact it was the first time since that night when she had made him kiss her because his profile and his tennis playing had obsessed her.
“After you’ve taken them home,” she said, “why not motor back with us? It’s a gorgeous night, and the Eliots’ cottage is high up on a range of hills almost within reaching distance of the stars.”
Her grotesque sense of humor carried her away. How immense it would be to tempt this man out of the stony path of duty and see what he would do. What a story for her little friends! What screams of mirth she could evoke in her recital of so amazing an event, especially as she could dress it all up as she alone knew so well how to do! And then to be able to add to it all the indignant broken English of Kirosch at finding himself deserted. He had promised to sing to her that night. What a frightfully funny story.
For a moment or two, with the intoxication of music and of those wide-apart eyes still upon him, Fallaray stood closer to his wife than he had ever been. It seemed to him that she had grown softer and sweeter and he was surprised and full of wonder, until he remembered that she had come to see Kirosch, whom she called her protégé—and then he understood.
Mrs. Malwood came out and luckily broke things up. “He’s singing,” she said. “Aren’t you coming in? Good heavens, Feo, what the deuce are you playing at? You’ve dragged me up and ruined everything, only to miss the very thing you seemed so keen to hear. What is the idea?” She recognized Fallaray and said, “Oh, it’s you.”
And he bowed and got away—that kink in Feo’s nature was all across her face like a birthmark.