Somewhere in the Weald of Kent, the grinding noise of the brakes, suddenly applied, disturbed her reading. The train dragged itself to a halt and a long silence followed.
At last Anne threw open the window and peered into the darkness. There was nothing to be seen but a red light shining somewhere down the line, and the vague forms of oak trees near at hand. For a moment there was nothing to be heard, and then, suddenly, her ear caught a far-off melodious chuckle and a moment afterwards the first startling clear notes of a bird’s song. The red light changed to green; there was a long puff, and a series of snorts from the engine; the ticking of released brakes, and once more the train was in motion. But Anne had recognized the note of the nightingale.
“Love,” she said to herself, and began laughing.
TWELVE: RICHARD’S FRIENDS
Two men and a woman were having breakfast in the studio in their dressing-gowns.
“Oh, my God, Grandison!” exclaimed Richard Sotheby, after looking into the letter which Anne had posted two days before in London. “What am I to do? Here is that girl arriving in Paris to-morrow. She asks me to get her lodgings, and to meet her at the station. What on earth am I to do? I wonder if I could stop her coming.... She doesn’t give her London address. No, I can’t stop her. Oh, what a curse....”
Grandison laughed and, turning to the woman beside her, told her the news in bad French. A look of incredulity passed over her brown face, and then she also began to laugh. The dark eyes sparkled with malice, the even white teeth shone, she put the point of her healthy pink tongue between her painted lips; and then, the humour of the situation increasing as she turned the news over in her mind, she sprang up and danced bare-footed round the breakfast table in the middle of the immense room. The skirts of the silk dressing-gown whirled round the lithe body; every movement was lovely, but neither of the men looked at her. When she stopped it was to pour out a flood of questions which went unanswered.
“It is not a joke,” said Richard Sotheby gloomily. “You will have to help me. You don’t object, I suppose,” he added in French to the girl, “if Grandison devotes his time to her?”
“How insolent you are, Richard!” said the woman, taking hold of Grandison’s arm, and putting her cheek beside his head. “I am to be sacrificed because you can’t face a woman. I could call you some hard names if I chose.” She pouted, but at once went on: “But I won’t, for I sympathize with you. Really I am anxious to see this girl of yours, Richard. It will be a curiosity. Are you going to bring her to live with us? I shall be charming to her, and she will keep me company sometimes. Two men is more than I can manage.” She pouted again, and added in tones of deep tenderness: “Two dirty Englishmen.”
Richard Sotheby looked at her with a patient smile, then, ignoring her questions, he turned to his friend and said, speaking in English: “And two women is more than I can manage.”