He smiled. “Perhaps you’re partly right. I was curious and I do get bored and....”
“And you’re alone.” She spoke for him.
He finished his drink and did not answer her; there was no need to answer her.
“Are you glad,” she asked at last, “are you glad to see me again?”
He said that he was. He declared that he was. He made an issue of it. He was still not at ease with her and she felt desperate. It was like a battle between them; first one side retreating and the other advancing.... Or perhaps a hunt. She was the hunter and her memories the pursued. She knew that beneath his many assumed faces there was the person she had known in Florence. Deliberately Carla began to smash the faces.
George Robert Lewis had a very pleasant interview with de Bianca, the star; after a half-hour, though, he was beginning to get restless. Dancers seldom talked about anything interesting. Finally he excused himself, saying that his guests were waiting for him.
They were talking quietly and intimately when he got back to the table. He took a secret pleasure in interrupting them. Lewis had already decided that they were lovers.
“I’m so dreadfully sorry that I went off and left you the way I did. It was stupid of me but I got so involved with Hermes and his amours: he tells me all about them and though they’re really quite dull I have to be polite and listen. Have you ordered yet?”
They said that they had not. Lewis immediately became noisily efficient. He ordered the languid waiter about, gave him careful instructions and ignored his glances and meaningful gestures. Lewis never had liked this type at all. The ones like this waiter never seemed to have any respect for him. They couldn’t understand the principles for which he stood. They were not artists.