"Nonsense, Suzette!—you have told me often it was only because I was very rich—now be sensible—these things have to have an end some day. I shall be going back to England soon, so just let me make you comfortable and happy and let us part friends—."
She still stormed and raged—'There was someone else—it was the "Mees"—I had been different ever since she had come to the flat—She, Suzette, would be revenged—she would kill her—!'
Then I flew into a rage, and dominated her, and when I had her thoroughly frightened I appealed to the best in her—and when she was sobbing quietly Burton came in to say that dinner was ready—his face was eloquent!
"Don't let the waiters see you like that," I said.
Suzette rushed to the glass and looked at herself, and then began opening her gold chain bag to get out her powder and lip grease—I went on into the salon and left her—.
What an irony everything is—! When I was yearning for tenderness and love—, even Suzette's, I was unable to touch her, and now because I am quite indifferent, both she and Nina, in their separate ways, have begun to find me attractive. So there is nothing in it really, it is only as to whether or no you arouse the hunting instinct!
Suzette wore an air of deep pathos during our repast—. She had put some blue round her eyes to heighten the effect of the red of the real tears, and she appeared very pretty and gentle—It had not the slightest effect upon me—I found myself looking on like a third person. The mole with its three black hairs seemed to be the only salient point about her.
Poor little Suzette!—How glad I felt that I had never even pretended a scrap of love for her!
That astonishing sense of the fitness of things which so many of these women possess, showed itself as the evening wore on—. Finding the situation hopeless, Suzette accepted it, curbed the real emotion in herself and played the game—She tried to amuse me—and then we discussed plans for her future. A villa at Monte Carlo she decided at last—A bijou of a place! which she knew of—. And when we parted at about eleven o'clock everything was arranged satisfactorily. Then she said good-bye to me—She would go back to Paris by the last train—.
"Good-bye, Suzette!"—and I bent down and kissed her forehead—"You have been the jolliest little pal possible—and remember that I have appreciated it,—and you will always have a real friend in me!"