“Well—perhaps a little later,” Ivor said, leaning against the edge of the table. “I’m not the man I was at daylight drinking.”
Tarlyon suddenly grinned.
“I don’t know what you mean by a little later,” he said, “for I hear you are leaving us before lunch.” And he grinned, just a little, directly up at Ivor. Trying to confuse one, Ivor thought. Well, he wasn’t going to be confused....
“Yes, that’s it,” he told him. “Lunch at Antibes, I suppose.”
Tarlyon lazily stretched out his hand and took another cigarette: he lit it.
“And you’ll dine, I suppose, at Avignon,” he suggested. “Romantic old place, Avignon....” And then he added, first to the brown tips of his shoes, then directly at him: “By the way, Marlay, there aren’t any other women you’d like to take away with you from my house, are there?”
Silence....
“That,” said Ivor at last, “was a damn silly insult.”
“I wasn’t trying to be clever, you know,” Tarlyon pointed out. “We can’t all try....”
“Well,” said Ivor, “if that insult was a sample of your wit, you’d have to try pretty hard.”