The native who had conducted Stella Mendoza to the apartment had disappeared, and she waited at the end of the divan, looking at the man for a long time before he took any notice of her. Presently he turned his head and favoured her with a stupid, vacant stare.
“Sit down, Stella,” he said thickly, “sit down. You couldn’t dance like that, eh? None of you Europeans have got the grace, the suppleness. Look at her!”
The dancing girl was twirling at a furious rate, her scanty draperies enveloping her like a cloud. Presently, with a crash of the guitars, she sank, face downward, on the carpet. Gregory said something in Malayan, and the woman showed her white teeth in a smile. Stella had seen her before: there used to be two dancing girls, but one had contracted scarlet fever and had been hurriedly deported. Gregory had a horror of disease.
“Sit down here,” he commanded, laying his hand on the divan.
As if by magic, every servant in the room had disappeared, and she suddenly felt cold.
“I’ve left my chauffeur outside, with instructions to go for the police if I’m not out in half an hour,” she said loudly, and he laughed.
“You ought to have brought your nurse, Stella. What’s the matter with you nowadays? Can’t you talk anything but police? I want to talk to you,” he said in a milder tone.
“And I want to talk to you, Gregory. I am leaving Chichester for good, and I don’t want to see the place again.”
“That means you don’t want to see me again, eh? Well, I’m pretty well through with you, and there’s going to be no weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth on my part.”
“My new company——” she began, and he stopped her with a gesture.