[305]
] “Courty can sleep through it all,” she sighed. “But the noise keeps me awake.”
She caught Nancy by both hands, drawing her out of the chair.
“I’ve been so anxious to know you, my dear. I begged Dicky to bring you to see me but he said you were the mountain—Mohammet would have to come to you.”
All through the elaborate supper they gushed over her, with just that touch of patronage position assured permits itself toward those of the stage.
But though conversation was light and general and Cunningham the perfect host, he might have been alone with the young star, so completely did his eyes disregard the others. They seemed to send their gaze round her like a cloak. She felt it unmistakably and a glow radiated from her eyes and voice, from her whole body.
When the dregs of Crème
de Menthe and Benedictine had settled in little green and gold pools at the bottom of cordial glasses, and candle flames gleamed faint blue in the dripping tallow; when laughing voices mellowed into distance and cars had slid off into darkness, two figures stood at the curb in front of the little house. The door swung slowly shut behind them. The woman looked up, the man down, and there flashed between them that secret look of understanding that can pass only when words no longer have value.
The last car drove up. He helped her in. The door slammed. Without a word he took her to him. Just as his gaze had encompassed her, so his arms enclosed [306] ]her now. Her lips trembled against his. For a moment, endless because of all time, there was silence—that intense beating silence that chokes.
Then his voice came with a ring of triumph.
“You know I want you.” And he waited for no answer. “You knew I wanted you that night we met.”