It was a very rich and expensive dinner that Julian had ordered; and a bouquet of red carnations lay beside her plate. Lobster and champagne. What a crowd of excited people! Bare flesh was very ugly, and all those waved heads of women were intolerable. The monotony of faces in a crowd!...
Julian was studying her covertly, with flickering glances, though his attention was ostensibly for the company. He drank restlessly: the lines in his face were very marked. She would say something to him about the monotony of faces in a crowd; and then something about waved hair. After that she said:
‘Julian, does anybody know you’re here?’
‘No, not a soul.’
‘You left no address?’
‘No. Paris is my headquarters. When I go off like this I prefer that the great world should await my return, not follow me.’
‘Ah, you’re wise.’ She laughed. ‘It must make you feel so free.’
‘Why did you ask?’
‘Because it just occurred to me.’
Because they might have sent him a telegram: he was the eldest of the family, and they might have wanted him for all sorts of reasons: for the funeral.... But the body had not yet been recovered. Soon she must say to him: ‘Julian, Martin has been drowned.’ He would not much mind: they had never been very intimate: but of course they had shared that blood-intimacy of the circle. She must really tell him soon.