And when Feo looked again, she saw in Fallaray’s eyes once more the old aloofness, the old dislike. And she laughed and threw back her head. “Cherchez la femme,” she said. “One of these days I’ll get you to tell me why you looked like that.” And she disappeared with Mrs. Malwood to smile down on Kirosch from her seat near the platform.
And Fallaray remained out under the stars, his intoxication all gone. Nowhere could he see and nowhere did he wish to see those wide-apart eyes with their adoration. The tingle of that little hand had left him. And just as he turned to go back into the building a newspaper boy darted out to a side street with a shrill raucous cry, “Speshall. Mines Floodin’. Riots in Wales. Speshall.”
III
The tears that blinded her eyes had gone when Chalfont came back from the cloakroom. He saw on Lola’s face a smile that made him think of sunlight on a bank of primroses.
But they didn’t go to the Coliseum, after all. It so happened that just as they were about to leave the Savoy, Chalfont was pounced upon by a little woman, the sight of whom made Lola long to burst into a laugh. She was amazingly fat, almost as fat indeed as one of those pathetic women who go round with circuses and sit in a tent all by themselves dressed in tinsel and present an unbelievable leg to gaping yokels and say, “Pinch it, dearie, and see for yourself.” Her good-natured face, with eyes as blue as birds’ eggs, ran down into three double chins. It was crowned with a mass of hair dyed a brilliant yellow, the roots of which grew blackly like last year’s leaves under spring’s carpet. With an inconceivable lack of humor she was dressed like a flapper. She was a comic note in a tragic world. “Oh, hello, Peter,” she said. “You bad boy, you’ve deserted me,” and then she looked at Lola with a beaming smile of appreciation and added, “No wonder.”
More than a little annoyed, because the one thing that he most wanted was to keep Lola to himself, Peter presented his cork hand. “I’ve been in the country,” he said. “I’m awfully sorry I had to miss your party. Lady Cheyne—Madame de Brézé.”
“There, I knew you were French. I’ve been betting on it ever since you came in. We could see you two from our table.” She waved her hand towards a group of six or seven people who were standing at the top of the stairs. “Come along home with me now,” she said. “We’re going to have some music. I’ve got a new Russian violinist—you needn’t be afraid, he’s been thoroughly disinfected—and a dear thing who sings the roof off. I can’t pronounce her name. It’s a cross between a sneeze and an oath. I believe she comes from Czecho-Slovakia. Also I’ve got Alton Cartridge, the poet. He’s going to read one of his latest effusions. He’s the great futurist, you know. That is, he doesn’t bother himself about rhymes and not very much about reason. Why don’t you both come?”
Chalfont looked quickly at Lola and signaled, “For God’s sake, no.”
So she said, “I should love to.” The name and fame of Lady Cheyne was well known to her through the medium of the “Letters of Evelyn.”
“That’s very sweet of you, my dear. One hundred Kensington Gore. Memorize it, because I know that Peter will forget. He always does. We can’t raise a car between us so we’re all going in taxis. See you later then.”