Very little was said on the way to Connie’s hotel. She was beyond speech for the present—she was reliving the days when the world was at Petrovitch’s feet, and he, the master, was at hers. For she believed now that it was the depth and tumult of his passion for her that had carried her away. She had forgotten her notes, her flowers, the interviews she had prayed for—forgotten all that. She won him by deliberate assault, but once won, she became his slave, and it was as his adoring slave in those first, brief, happy months, that she liked to remember herself.
Noel was disgusted and annoyed. Also, he was extremely disappointed. Was all his scolding, his chaffing, his affection for her, the influence he had gained, to go for nothing now? Simply because that … brute … had turned up again? Was there nothing he could say or do to save her? What would Claire say? And then he asked himself, well, what would Claire say? Why not find out? That was an idea. He would find out.
“You’ll come upstairs, won’t you?” she asked when they were in the hall of the hotel. Noel thought her invitation somewhat perfunctory. He suspected she wanted to be alone with her thoughts. Nevertheless, he meant to come, presently.
“Yes, I’ll be up in a minute,” he said. “You go on. I’ve got to ring up somebody.”
The lift carried her up out of his sight and he went into the telephone booth and rang up Madame Claire. Her telephone stood on a table close beside her chair, and he had hardly a second to wait before she answered.
“Yes? Oh, it’s you, Noel. Where are you?”
He told her. Then he described briefly the luncheon at Claridge’s and what befell there.
“I saw the announcement of his concert in last Sunday’s paper,” she said. “Connie never reads the papers, or she would have seen it herself. What is he like now?”
“I don’t want to use offensive language over the telephone,” he answered.
He heard Madame Claire’s laugh.