the entertainment was near its end. a dainty figure came from the heavy curtains that hung from each side of the proscenium and hid the entertainers from the audience. humphrey recognised desirée, though she had forsaken her stage-costume and wore a simple dark-blue dress, with a black fur boa held carelessly about her shoulders. she came towards them with a smile, stopping on the way, as one or two men, of a better class than the bulk of the audience, hailed her. she bent down to them, and whispered conversations followed. she laughed and slapped the face of one man—an elderly man with a red ribbon in his button-hole. it was a playful slap, just the movement that a kitten makes with its paw when it is playing with long hanging curtains.
charnac pushed out a chair for her invitingly. she came to them with a smile hovering about her lips, and a look of curious interest in her pale eyes as she saw humphrey. she shook hands with charnac, and kissed her sister margot, and then, with a frank gesture, without any embarrassment, she held out her hand to humphrey and said:
"bon soir, p'tit homme."
there was a quality of friendship in her voice; her whole manner suggested a desire to be amiable; she accepted humphrey as a friend without question, and, as for charnac, she treated him as if he were one of the family, as a brother. the women in the room stared at the party every few moments, absorbed in the details of desirée's dress, and the men glanced at her with smiles that irritated humphrey.
[307]
"it is a little friend of mine—an englishman," charnac said to desirée.
"an englishman!" said desirée, in a way that seemed to be the echo of her sister's remark a few minutes earlier. "i have a friend in england." she spoke french in a clipped manner, abbreviating her words, and scattering fragments of slang through her phrases.
"is that so?" humphrey said. "what part of england?"
"manchestaire," she replied. "his name was mr smith. you know him?"
humphrey laughed. "i'm afraid i don't—manchester's a big place, you know."
"is it as big as london?"
"oh no. not as big as london."
"i should like to go to london. i have a friend there—a girl friend."
"oh! where does she live?"
"i forget the name of the street—somewhere near charing cross—that's a railway station, isn't it?"
"yes."
silence fell between them while a comedian, dressed as a comic soldier, sang a song that made them all laugh; though humphrey could not understand the argot, he caught something of the innuendo of the song. strange, that in france and germany, in countries where patriotism and militarism are at their highest, the army should be held up to ridicule, and burlesqued in the coarsest fashion. the song gave humphrey an opportunity of studying desirée's face. he saw that the yellow hair was silky and natural; her eyebrows were as pale as her hair, and when she laughed, her red lips parted to show small white teeth that looked incredibly sharp. she was not beautiful, but she held some mysterious attraction for him. she was of a type that[308] differed from all the women he had met. though her face and figure showed that she was little more than twenty, her bearing was that of a woman who had lived and learnt all there was to know of the world. one slim, ungloved hand rested on the table, and he noted the beauty of it, its slender, delicate fingers, and the perfect shape of her pink, shining nails. in the making of her, nature seemed to have concentrated in her hands all her power of creating beauty.
the song finished to a round of applause.
"il est joliment dr?le," said desirée to charnac. "ah! zut ... i could do with a drink."
"we won't have anything here," charnac said. "they only sell species of poisons. let's go and have supper at the chariot d'or.... will you join us, mr quain?"
why not? it was a perfectly harmless idea. every experience added something to his knowledge. and yet, he hesitated. somewhere, at the back of his mind, a feeling of uneasiness awoke in him. charnac would pair off with margot, and he would have to sit with desirée during the meal. the thought carried with it a picture of forbidden things. conscience argued with him: "you really oughtn't to, you know." "why not? what harm will it do?" he urged. conscience was relentless. "you forget you have a duty to some one." "nonsense," he said, "let's look at the thing in a broad-minded way. it won't hurt me to have supper with them, surely."
desirée laid a hand upon his sleeve gently.
"tu viens—oui," she asked, in a low, caressing voice. their eyes met. he saw the pupils of her narrow eyes grow larger for a second, as though they were striving to express unspoken thoughts. then they receded and contracted to little, dark, twinkling beads set in their centre of pale blue circles.
[309]
"oui," he said, with a sigh.
they came out into the noisy night of the boulevard. they walked together, charnac and margot with linked arms. the lower floors of the night restaurants were blazing with light, but in the upper rooms the drawn blinds subdued the glare, and transformed it into a warm glow. cabs and motor-cars came up the steep hill from the grands boulevards below for the revelry of supper after the theatre. the great doors of the chariot d'or were continually moving, and the uniformed doorkeeper seemed to enjoy the exercise of pulling the door open every second, as women in wraps, accompanied by men, crossed the threshold.
they went upstairs into a long brilliant room, all gold and glass and red plush, with white tablecloths shining in the strong light. in the corner a group of musicians, dressed in a picturesque costume—it might have been taken from any of the balkan states, or from imagination—played a dragging waltz melody.
a dark woman sat by them, wearing a spanish dress, orange and spangled, the bodice low-cut, and the skirt fanciful and short, showing her thin legs clad in black open-work stockings. she regarded the room with an air of detached interest, unanswering the glances of the men. she was the wife of the first violinist.
charnac led the way to a table; he placed himself next to margot on the red plush sofa-cushions, and humphrey sat with desirée. while charnac was ordering the supper and consulting their individual tastes, humphrey glanced round the room at the men who sat at the little tables with glasses of sparkling amber wine before them, some of them in evening-dress, with crumpled, soft shirt-fronts, others in lounge suits or morning-coats. not all had women with them, but the women that he saw were luxurious,[310] beautiful creatures, with indolent eyes and faces of strange beauty.
the lights gleamed under rose-coloured shades on the table, on the silver dishes piled high with splendid fruits, on bottles swathed tenderly with napkins, set in silver ice-pails, on tumblers of coloured wines and liqueurs.
"it's pretty here, eh?" said desirée.
"it's not so bad. i've never been here before. do you come often?"
"oh no! not often: only when margot brings gustave to come and fetch me after i've been singing."
she clapped her hands gaily as the waiter set a steaming dish of mussels before them. the house was famed for its moules marinières. "i adore them," she said, unfolding her serviette, and tucking it under her chin. charnac ladled out the mussels into soup-plates. their blue iridescent shells shone in an opal-coloured gravy where tiny slices of onion floated on the surface. her dainty fingers dipped into the plate, and she fed herself with the mussels, biting them from the shells with her sharp white teeth. she ate with an extraordinary rapidity, breaking off generous pieces from the long, crisp roll of bread before her, and drinking deeply of her red burgundy.
she was simply an animal. margot ate in much the same way, with greedy, quick gestures, until her plate was piled high with empty mussel shells. and, during the meal, they chattered trivialities, discussing personal friends in a slangy, intimate phraseology.
the sharp taste of the sauce, with its flavour of the salt sea-water, made humphrey thirsty, and he, too, drank plenty of wine; and the wine and the warmth sent the colour rushing to his cheeks, and filled him with a sense of comfort. the whole atmosphere of the place had a soothing effect on him.
[311]
the orchestra started to play a spanish dance, and the woman in orange rose from her seat, and tossing her lace shawl aside, moved down the aisle of tables in a sidling, swinging dance, castanets clicking from her thumbs, marking the sway and poise of her body above her hips. it was a sexual, voluptuous dance, that stirred the senses like strong wine. now she flung herself backwards with a proud, uplifted chin. one high-heeled satin shoe stamped the floor. her eyes flashed darkly and dangerously; she flaunted her bare throat and bosom before them; now she moved with a lithe sinuous motion from table to table, one hand on her hip, and the other swinging loosely by her side.
there was something terrible and triumphant in her dance to the beat of the music with its rhythm of a heart throbbing in passion.
"bravo! bravo!" they cried, as the dance finished. "bis," shouted charnac, lolling back in his seat with his arm round margot's shoulder.
"she dances well," said humphrey.
desirée turned her pale eyes on him. "i can dance better," she said, and before he had realized it, she was up and in the centre of the room, and everybody laughed and clapped hands, as desirée began to dance with stealthy, cat-like steps. her face was impudent, as she twined and twisted her thin body into contortions that set all the men leering at her. it was frankly repulsive and horrible to humphrey; she seemed suddenly to have ceased to be a woman, just as when she had started to eat. she was inhuman when she sang and ate and danced.
the blur of white flesh through the smoke, the odour of heavy scents, and the sight of desirée writhing in her horrid dance, sickened him. he saw her white teeth gleaming between her lips, half-parted with the exhaustion of her dance, he saw her eyes laughing at him,[312] as though she were proud and expected his applause, and he felt a profound, inexplicable pity for her that overwhelmed his disgust.
she flung herself, panting, into her seat, and pushed back her disordered yellow hair with her hands. "oh la! ... la!" she cried, laughing in gasps, "c'est fatiguant, ?a ... my throat is like a furnace." and she clicked her glass against the glass that humphrey held in his hand, and drained it to the finish.
"why did you do that?" asked humphrey, huskily.
"do what?"
"dance like that—in front of all these people?"
"why shouldn't i, if i want to?"
"i don't like it," he said, wondering why he was impelled to say so.
"well, you shouldn't have said she dances well," desirée replied.
"i must be going," humphrey said.
"oh, not yet," charnac said. "let's all go together."
"no," he pushed his chair away with sudden resolution. "i must go."
"but, my dear—" desirée began.
"i must go," humphrey repeated, slowly. it was like the repetition of a lesson. "i must go now."
"oh, well—" charnac said.
the waiter appeared with a bill. "you will allow me to pay?" humphrey asked charnac.
"mais non, mais non, mon ami," he replied, good-naturedly. "it was i who asked you to come, wasn't it? another night it will be your turn."
"another night," echoed margot, in her high-pitched voice. "j'adore les anglais, ils sont si gentils."
"and why cannot you stop?" desirée asked.
he avoided her eyes. never could he explain in this room, with its scent and its music and its warmth,[313] that turned vice into happiness and made virtue as chilling and intractable as marble. he only knew that he had to go. he made some excuse—any excuse—work—a headache ... he did not know what he was saying; he was only conscious of those narrow eyes beneath pale eyebrows, and red parted lips, and the soft hand that lay in his—the soft hand with the finger-tips as beautiful as rosy sea-shells.
they were not to blame; they could not be expected to know his innermost life, nor why it was that he felt suddenly as if he had profaned himself, and all that was most sacred to him. but that finer, nobler self that was always dormant within him, as eager to awaken to influences as it was to be lulled to sleep by them, became active and alert....
there was a hint of dawn in the sky as he came out into the empty street, his mind charged with a deep melancholy. but, as the cool air played about his face, he breathed more freely after the stuffy warmth of the room, and he walked with a firm step, square-shouldered, erect and courageous.
