The hero of thirty-seven with hair silvered at the temples, admonished him from every hoarding and he took a hansom to avoid his sedate contemporary's reproof. Entering the club, he walked through an avenue of decorators' ladders; the smoking-room was full of paint and pails. What could be more absurd than to remain in town?
He winced as it occurred to him that Adaile might have been married twice. Supposing the "Mrs. Adaile" in Ostend proved to be a stranger, an unfamiliar person profaning a hallowed name? How complete a fool he would feel when he arrived! But he would not dwell on that contingency. "Far fetched," he said. Even a fate that showered disappointments as freely as if they were confetti must draw the line somewhere.
He was among the tourists, and the luggage-thieves at Charing Cross by ten o'clock next morning. When he reached Ostend it was a fine afternoon, and the town was baking. By comparison London had been pleasant, so a multitude of Londoners had flocked to Ostend. With trepidation he beheld the hotel that sheltered her—what if he were unable to obtain a room in it? But no—so far, so good. Fate was, perhaps, napping in the heat—a room was to be had. He washed his face in No. 17 victoriously, and overlooked the scarlet geraniums, and the Faience fountain, glistening in a grass plot, and the red-striped sun-umbrellas that sprouted through the little tables. Nobody was visible among the basket chairs. A starling's twittering in a lilac bush, was the only voice. The number of his room chimed with his mood—a happy coincidence. To the manager's mind, at least, he was "seventeen" again. Again he stood in an hotel bedroom preparing to join her downstairs! Had she changed very much?
Presently he wandered into the salon, and lounged round the reading-room. Everywhere it was unpromisingly quiet. A hint of siesta pervaded the hotel. Should he go out? He sauntered through the hall, but the dazzle of the Plage blistering in the glare made his eyes ache. He went back to the shade, and ruffled newspapers, and smoked cigarettes. A child came into the scorching courtyard that was called a "garden," and hopped round on one leg, and said to another child, "Can you do that?" The starling twittered imperturbably. Who said Ostend was gay?
Benighted male! the women weren't asleep, they were all changing their frocks again. When he woke he had missed one of the sights of the day—the "creations" that vie with another between five o'clock and seven. A gong was booming. Only the first gong. Good! There was time for him to dress before the room began to fill. He sought the head-waiter, and inquired if a place facing the door could be arranged. The headwaiter had house property, and two sons at college, but he was the urbanest of head-waiters. A novice tips the servants when he leaves an hotel, and, if he is a generous novice, pays for attention which he hasn't received; a traveller of experience tips them when he arrives, and gets the liver wing and a seat by the window.
The second gong was still reverberating when No. 17 descended to dinner. The urbanest of head-waiters hovered on the threshold. For scrutinising the company Conrad had scarcely time to glance at the menu. The doorway was as dazzling as the Plage had been: a cinematograph of toilettes, a succession of audacities—only clusters of diamonds seemed to keep some of the bodices up. Man formed a shifting background to an exhibition of jewels, a pageant of skirts and breasts. Still more gowns. The humming room was the apotheosis of Clothes—until the women sat down, and then it was the apotheosis of Bosom.
She came in late. She wore white satin, embroidered in silver, and a "collar" of emeralds. He recognised her at once. There was no hesitation in his mind—he had expected to hesitate—he knew her the instant she appeared. She had altered certainly—even pathetically; the girl of twenty years ago was lost; but in the flash of the moment the difference in her face startled him less than the difference in her figure. A shade too stout. Yes, a shade too stout for his taste! And—and had her hair been copper colour in Rouen?
But a pretty woman, nobody could deny it. She didn't look a day more than thirty-five—might pass for thirty now the rose glow of the lamps was on her! ... Well—almost!
Her table was well in view. She was with another woman—perhaps younger, a brunette, vivacious—and an elderly man with projecting teeth, and eyes like a fish. Adaile? How grotesque he must have looked making love! He had a nose as long as the one in Blake's portrait of the man who built the Pyramids. And he used to be unkind to her!—one could read that he was a cold-blooded, unappreciative stick.... Now he was talking to her. On second thoughts, perhaps he wasn't her husband—he displayed the projecting teeth to her in so many smiles. The other woman's husband then! Quite a good chap in his way, no doubt. He was doing them very well in the matter of wine.
Would there be a chance to speak to her to-night? Abominably hard lines if he had to wait till to-morrow, but he wanted to find her alone—in the garden, for preference, in the moonlight.... No—no—thirty-five; but no more, not an hour. How beautiful she used to be! She didn't know she was sitting in the room with a man she had kissed. Rather an amusing reflection that! ... Scores of men in the room, though; perhaps she did. How sick he would have felt to think so once! Where was the splendid jealousy he ought to feel this evening?