"He's just wonderful, Den," he said simply. "I thought that, coming too soon, he might be puny, delicate—but he's fine."
Esmé turned away. It was her boy they praised, and she knew the bitterness of jealousy.
If gold could have been fried for dinner, and diamonds used for sauce, Sir Cyril would have ordered them that night. He was too big and quiet to be openly hilarious, but its very quiet made it more marked. He ordered a special dinner, special wines, fruit, boxes of sweets. The table was littered as if it were one at Maxim's. To-morrow they would search Paris for a memento, for something to mark this meeting.
Esmé, listening, felt as some mortal who, standing in the cold, looks through clear glass at a blazing fire yet cannot warm himself. They shut a door on her; she had no boy lying upstairs; no husband to rejoice in his heir.
The cold stung bitterly; it loosed dull pangs of envy, of futile wrath. For what had brought these two together was hers, and she had sold it. Sometimes they turned to her vaguely, bringing her into their plans. Esmé would come shopping in the morning, of course, help to choose jewels; Esmé had been such a friend—so devoted.
"I'll never forget it, Mrs Carteret," Sir Cyril said once. "You lost half a year to keep my wife company. Lord! you're a real friend!"
"Yes." Esmé crunched a silvered bonbon, a cunning mixture of almonds and fruit and sugar. She picked another up, looking at it. Had she not looked on life as a bonbon, to crunch prettily and enjoy, a painted, flavoured piece of sugar?
She had money; she could go to the hidden shops on the second storeys, and buy the dainty fripperies that Paris knows how to produce; she wanted a fur coat, new frocks, hats, a dozen things.
Sir Cyril was bending close to his wife, holding her out a glass of Chartreuse, clinking it against hers.
"Den," his voice was stirred by deep emotion, "some day we'll go, you and I, and take that villa for a month, and I can see where my boy was born."