XV
THE ENEMY’S HAND
In spite of the somewhat abrupt and cavalier fashion in which Staff had parted from Alison at the St. Simon, he was obliged to meet her again that afternoon at the offices of Jules Max, to discuss and select the cast for A Single Woman. The memory which each retained of their earlier meeting naturally rankled, and the amenities suffered proportionately. In justice to Staff it must be set down that he wasn’t the aggressor; his contract with Max stipulated that he should have the deciding word in the selection of the cast—aside from the leading rôle, of course—and when Alison chose, as she invariably did, to try to usurp that function, the author merely stood calmly and with imperturbable courtesy upon his rights. In consequence, it was Alison who made the conference so stormy a one that Max more than once threatened to tear his hair, and as a matter of fact did make futile grabs at the meagre fringe surrounding his bald spot. So the meeting inevitably ended in an armed truce, with no business accomplished: Staff offering to release Max from his contract to produce, the manager frantically begging him to do nothing of the sort, and Alison making vague but disquieting remarks about her inclination to “rest.” ...
Staff dined alone, with disgust of his trade for a sauce to his food. And, being a man—which is as much as to say, a creature without much real understanding of his own private emotional existence—he wagged his head in solemn amazement because he had once thought he could love a woman like that.
Now Eleanor Searle was a different sort of a girl altogether....
Not that he had any right to think of her in that light; only, Alison had chosen to seem jealous of the girl. Heaven alone (he called it honestly to witness) knew why....
Not that he cared whether Alison were jealous or not....
But he was surprised at his solicitude for Miss Searle—now that Alison had made him think of her. He was really more anxious about her than he had suspected. She had seemed to like him, the few times they’d met; and he had liked her very well indeed; it’s refreshing to meet a woman in whom beauty and sensibility are combined; the combination’s piquant, when you come to consider how uncommon it is....