Such, however, was the one word that seemed to suit the way she went with Bellamy. And when one had watched her practise and repeat without end the trick of the upward, sham-timid glance of eyes demurely wise, accompanied by the provocative pout of aggressively kissable life, the look that said openly: I think you're rather nice and I know I am; so why are we wasting time?—and had seen it work an apparently invariable effect upon one who called himself a man of the world, who should long since have graduated from the social kindergartens where such tactics are vogue—well, one simply longed to cuff his ears and tell him to quit being such a silly fool. It gave one furiously to repent having relinquished the right to bestow upon Bel gratuitous advice for his own good.
Wherefore it came to pass that, as a general thing, whenever Fanny was wanted for a scene and was not to be found in the neighbourhood of the set, she would ultimately be discovered somewhere on the lot, more often than not in the most public corner of it, industriously rehearsing her wiles for the debatable benefit of Bellamy.
And this the man who had declared that his besetting sin had lost all savour for him since it had done its part to alienate his wife!
Lucinda nevertheless assured herself that she didn't so much mind Bel's inconsistency—for what were his protestations to her today?—or even Fanny's commonplace coquetries; it was the surreptitious airs with which Fanny sought to envelop these goings-on, the reticence which she persisted in observing in respect of their effect, that made their joint stupidity maddening. For never since that afternoon when Bel had caught Lucinda in the act of kissing Summerlad before a camera, and Fanny had playfully announced her intention of vamping him to a fare-ye-well, had she chosen to mention his name in any relation to herself. In the local vernacular which she had been so quick to pick up, Fanny seemed to think she was getting away with something.
Lucinda resisted the temptation to disillusion her friend mostly because of a faint-hearted hope that Fanny might at any moment redeem herself with a scornful report of Bel's gullibility, but in part because of doubt whether Bel were being taken in as completely as he appeared to be. It was just possible that this old hand at philandering was simply playing Fanny's game to find out what she meant by it. Certainly he showed no propensity to favouritism. The path of his amourette with the Marquis girl ran parallel to that which he pursued with Fanny, perhaps ran faster, but strangely proved not half so tiresome to the spectator. In spite of all that Summerlad had said of her, Lucinda entertained an honest admiration for the Marquis as she was today, considered her physically quite a fascinating creature, which she unquestionably was in this revised phase, and found what Bel saw in her far more easy to understand than what he saw in Fanny. This was something partly to be accounted for by the circumstance that Lucinda saw comparatively so little of Miss Marquis, saw her so seldom save at a distance and when she was on her dignity—when, as Summerlad had it, she had slapped on thick the make-up of a lady. That it was in good measure make-up merely Lucinda had memories to testify. For all that, she saw the girl comporting herself toward Bellamy with a manner which she thought Fanny might have copied to good profit. But when she confided as much to Summerlad she found him darkly suspicious of Nelly's present good behaviour.
"Don't worry," he advised: "That young woman will surprise you yet. She's being nice now and enjoying the novelty. Chances are she took the cure, that time she disappeared. But it never lasts. Once the old hop gets its hooks into anybody it never lets go, really. It may seem to be licked for a while, but it's only waiting for a moment of weakness. Wait till Nelly gets bored playing up to the gentlemanly attentions of your friend, Mr. Druce, wait till she wants him to do something he doesn't want to. Just wait. If you admire fireworks, believe me, Linda, your waiting won't be wasted."
Having said which, Summerlad made haste to change the subject. But Lucinda had already learned that any reference to Nelly Marquis was calculated to make him restive. A circumstance in itself not the least irksome of the many which she counted as afflictions. She needed badly a congenial confidant, and Lynn was newly become anything but that, had, indeed, never seemed quite the same since the first night of his return. Another black mark to add to Bellamy's score. For Lynn was inevitably and pardonably disgusted with the situation at the studio, where he couldn't turn around without running into either the Marquis girl or the husband of the woman he loved. Then much of the old delight in sharing working-quarters had been lost through their tacit agreement that, under these changed conditions, a trifle more reserve wouldn't come amiss when they met under the public eye. But now, even when they were alone, the old-time spontaneity was missing, and, Lucinda was sure, through no fault of hers. It was in Lynn that she thought to detect a strange new absence of ease, what she could almost have termed a hang-dog air, a furtive fashion of watching her, if he thought she wasn't aware, that was swift to change, as soon as he found she was, to a species of feeble bravado distastefully reminiscent of Bel when Bel had been drinking just enough to feel it and not enough to have become callous; an air of having done something he oughtn't and living in instant dread of being found out.
Lynn had such an air with her, that is, if Lucinda were not self-deceived, if she didn't imagine it all, if it were anything but an hallucination conjured up by a mind morbidly conscious of Bel's shadow in the offing, the shadow of that relationship which, while unresolved, must ever rest between the lover and the wife.