Pinto was a bad-tempered and highly respectable Portuguese gentleman of means, who was engaged to marry Zoe. They had been engaged four years already, and although Zoe did not allow his formal proprietorship to interfere with her more enjoyable activities, yet the inexplicable freak of her love for Pinto admitted of no contradiction. He bullied her, and she was abject; he sulked, and she wooed him with succulent dishes; he shouted at her, and she was silent; he had toothache, and she wept. Her life was a perpetual scamper to clear her premises of their illegitimate riff-raff before the arrival of Pinto; for she was essentially “bonne gosse,” and could no more have refused one man her kiss, and another her company, than now her bathroom to Benvenuto the oboe-player.
Pinto was not a favourite among Zoe’s friends; and hearing that he was momentarily expected, Deb and Antonia rose to go.
“Come any time you like to spend a night here, Deb, to make up for yesterday. I love to have you, and you know the sofa is comfy enough. Antonia, you look such a darling in your khaki, I’ve half a mind to throw up the movies and become a General’s chauffeuse myself. I’m sure the dear old doddery thing would simply adore me, don’t you think he would? I could perch on his knee and pull his whiskers when I wasn’t driving him to Headquarters. I’ve really thought lately of doing war-work, haven’t you, Deb? I know someone who said he could get me a job at the Admiralty.”
“Heaven forbid!” Antonia cried in horror; “Do remember that as a nation we rely above all on our command of the seas. To have the Admiralty demoralized into Palais Royale burlesque of banging doors and everybody helter-skelter after everybody else.... Prove your patriotism and stop where you are, Zoe! it’s safer. And I won’t have my Major-General tampered with either,” she added demurely; “He’s not much over forty and very good-looking.”
Zoe sighed: “You are lucky; there’s nothing you couldn’t do with that irresistible peak to your cap.... But I really should be sorry to chuck up the part I’m rehearsing; it’s a tremendously fascinating plot, and so simple. I must tell you: The boyish hero Jim falls in love with Dolores, a wild Spanish-gipsy sort of woman much older than he is, and marries her. She gets tired of him, and runs away with something débonair called Raoul, and they have a child, and Dolores dies. Seventeen years later Jim meets the child and adopts her and loves her and marries her—and she gets tired of him, and runs away with something débonair called Réné, and they have a child, and then get killed in a circus. Years later Jim meets the child and adopts her, loves her and marries her, and she gets tired of him, ... it goes on like that for generations, until dear old Jim gets a little silver-powdery at the temples, but even that doesn’t seem to stop him. I play the child each time.”
“And always the same Jim? The film ought to be called ‘The Recurring Decimal,’” laughed Deb. “We must go and see it when it comes on. ’Bye, Zoe, I hear Pinto’s step on the ground-floor, and Benvenuto’s bath-water running away.”
Zoe flew to smother the incriminating oboe-player; and Deb, and Antonia departed. On the dark stairs they encountered Pinto, puffing noisily, and carrying a large jar of olives.
II
“She will be pleased with the olives,” Pinto complacently informed himself. Then he tripped over a basin of some peculiarly odorous fish soaking in water, which the First Tailor’s children had left on the landing. His temper changed.
“She will be overjoyed—it may be she thought I had left her for always. Now I return and I bring her olives. It is good of me....”