In all the hubbub of those busy, noisy days there were intervals when, for a moment, she found time for reflection ... odd moments between tea and dinner, or in the hours after midnight when the roar of the city and the small revealing sounds of the great hotel had abated a little; or moments when Rebecca, buoyant, triumphant and full of business interviewed in the sitting room the men who came from musical papers suggesting a sort of polite blackmail. Rebecca handled them all beautifully because she had in her the blood of a hundred generations who had lived by barter. So Ellen escaped them, save when it was necessary for her to be interviewed. Rebecca arranged the concerts that were to be given. She was busy, she was happy, she was content in her possession of Lilli Barr.
It occurred to Ellen after a time that she had not seen Mr. Wyck. In all the confusion there had been no mention of her mother’s lodger. He had not been about. So when her mother came to lunch the next day in her sitting room at the Ritz, she asked, after the usual warm kisses had been exchanged, concerning the mysterious lodger.
“He went away the week before you arrived,” said Hattie. “I could never understand why. He had seemed to be so satisfied.”
Ellen endeavored to conceal her sense of pleasure at his disappearance. “Perhaps,” she suggested, “he was leaving town.”
Hattie frowned. “No. It wasn’t that,” she replied. “He said that he must have a room nearer his work.... It seemed a silly reason.”
Ellen called Hansi to her side and the big black dog threw himself down with his head against her knee, his green eyes fastened on her face with a look of adoration. She stroked the fine black head and murmured, “You never told me his name.”
“His name was Wyck,” said Hattie. “We grew to be very fond of him. He was no trouble at all, though he did sometimes talk too much concerning his family. Still, I can see that he had nothing else to talk about. He didn’t seem to have any friends but us. Fergus was the only one who didn’t like him.”
Ellen looked up suddenly. She had forgotten Fergus. She had forgotten that Wyck had seen him on the morning when Clarence lay dead on the divan in the Babylon Arms. Perhaps they did not remember each other. Certainly it was clear that Hattie knew nothing. Fergus must have known and, distrusting the nasty little man, have kept his secret. It was a strange world.
There was champagne that day for lunch because Rebecca had asked her uncle Raoul and his daughter, a handsome dark Jewess. Together they sat about a table laden with food which was rich and bizarre to Hattie Tolliver. The sunlight streamed in at the windows and the waiters bobbed in and out of the room serving her daughter. The champagne she refused to drink and when the diamond merchant filled Ellen’s glass, she frowned and said, “I wish you wouldn’t drink, Ellen. You never know what it leads to.”
And when Mr. Schönberg, after telling one or two risqué stories, held a match to Ellen’s cigarette, Hattie frowned again and the old look of suspicion came into her eyes. It was Lily Shane who had taught her daughter to behave like a fast woman. She knew that.