She was so silent he began to wonder if he had shocked her, though that
didn't seem likely, she was such a sensible girl.
"Of course she can't help having that sort of hand," he hastened to add
apologetically. "It's just a peculiarity."
Esther was repeating to herself that phrase, "the hands of the
successful _cocotte_," which somehow seemed oddly illuminating. Lady
Clifford's hands had a meaning for her now. The soft cushioned palms
spelled love of luxury, the stumpy, curving fingers and talon-like
nails indicated acquisitive greed. She could see them grasping,
grasping...
"Ah, here are the cocktails."
She came to herself with a smile, and took the frosty glass which he
held out to her.
"May we both get what we want!"
She touched her glass to his gaily and drank. Then with a flash of
reminiscence she glanced across at Holliday, recalling the fact that a
few weeks ago he had uttered exactly the same toast. What was it
Holliday wanted? She had thought at the time it was something quite
definite....
The meal proceeded happily, they laughed and chatted with a sense of
exhilaration derived only in part from the champagne. Although they
told each other many things, as on a former occasion, it was not what
they said that mattered. Each was intensely absorbed in the other's
personality; what counted was mutual attraction, which invested every
commonplace with vibrant inner meanings. They forgot the life about
them; it was as though they were marooned upon a tiny island in the
midst of uncharted seas.
"Do you feel like dancing?"
The coffee, sending up a fragrant steam, was too hot to drink; the
saxophones sounded an insinuating invitation.
"Do let's--I'm dying to!"
As they mingled with the circling couples on the glassy floor, Roger
gave her hand a faint pressure.
"I said you were," he told her.
"Said I was what?"
"A wonderful dancer. The first time I saw you."
"No--did you?" she replied delightedly and returned the pressure
spontaneously. "I'm glad. I'd far rather you praised my dancing than
my character."
"I don't know anything about your character," he disclaimed, laughing.
He was enjoying himself immensely. Of all the girls he knew, it struck
him that not one would have fitted in so perfectly with his mood as did
this little Canadian girl who worked hard for her living. Why was it?
He had nothing to say against his own friends, jolly girls for the most
part, excellent at games and only a little spoilt by having always had
money--yet certainly they lacked the freshness which was so large a
part of this particular girl's attraction for him. She was capable and
intelligent, too, without sacrificing one whit of her femininity--he
was a simple enough male to remark on this; for that matter, he
reflected with pride, there was not a woman in the room who was
smarter. She had a poise and grace of movement that were a delight to
the eye, and she was _soignée_ to the finger-tips. A thoroughbred, he
summed her up, and felt pleased with his judgment.
When presently they were joined by his friends, Graham and Marjory
Kent, he was not particularly elated.
"I hope you don't curse us for barging in like this," Miss Kent
apologised, "but my brother is fed to the teeth with me and is going to
try and cadge a dance or two off you, Miss Rowe, if you'll be good to
him."
She was about twenty-six, tall and gypsy-like, her black hair in a bang
and her thin brown arms jingling with bangles. Esther liked her, she
was straightforward and jolly. The brother was younger and very shy,
yet plainly one of those timid souls whose tenacity of purpose will
carry them through agonies of embarrassment to a desired end. The end
in this case was evidently Esther. His black eyes shone with frank
admiration, even while he blushed a dusky red to the roots of his
immaculate hair.
"May I have this dance?" he murmured almost at once.
She smiled and rose to join him. At the same moment she caught a
certain glint in the eye of Roger which told her plainly how her value
had risen by reason of competition. In so many ways was he a mere
male--but she did not like him the less for that.
Roger, dancing with Marjory, whom he had known all his life, watched
the slender figure in fluttering pink whenever it crossed his line of
vision. The curly head had an upward tilt at times, for Graham was
over six feet tall, and she had to look up to speak to him.
"You know, Roger, Graham's fearfully taken with that girl of yours,"
Marjory told him calmly. "He gave me no peace until I brought him
over. Who is she? You don't mean it? A nurse! Well, who'd have
thought anyone so useful could look like that? I call it genius."
"Nurses needn't be frights," he objected.
"But most of them are.... By the way, I saw Lady Clifford here last
night, marvellous as usual. She was with a rather nice-looking
Englishman I've seen about Cannes a good deal--no one I know."
"Yes, he is here this evening, or was. I saw him having dinner."
"So did I, with a comic-looking foreign woman, simply lousy with
jewels. She's always about here. I used to wonder who in the world
had money enough to buy those enormous diamonds and ropes of pearls you
see in the shops in the Rue de la Paix. Now I know."
The dance went on and on; for the first time he noticed how frequently
the orchestra responded to an encore.
"Do look at Graham," whispered his partner delightedly. "Isn't it
amazing when you think how timid he is?"
The tall youth was not losing any time. In a brief interval Roger
overheard him saying something very earnest to his partner on the
subject of Saturday afternoon, evidently making a desperate bid for
Esther's free hour. She in turn was shaking her head doubtfully, but,
thought Roger, she did not look displeased. The idea came to Roger
that young Kent, who was sole heir to one of the biggest mill-owners in
Lancashire, would be counted a fine prize.... He looked at his watch.
"That little girl has to get up early," he murmured to Marjory. "I
promised faithfully not to keep her out late. If this goes on much
longer..."
It was a little after one o'clock when he tucked Esther into the
Citroën. He drove slowly towards La Californie, reluctant to put an
end to the evening, and intensely conscious of the girl beside him,
wrapped in her velvet coat, warm and glowing in the darkness.
"I'm sure we ought to have left sooner," she said, a little
conscience-stricken, "only it was so heavenly! I had the bad luck to
oversleep this morning; it would be dreadful to repeat the offence."
"Why should you care?"
"How like a man! Don't you grasp the fact that my living depends on
what doctors think of me?"
"In that case, you'll never be out of work."
She laughed.
"No, seriously, I was in the doctor's bad graces this morning. Not
only was I late, but I dropped a basin of water on the floor. Wasn't
it stupid? He looked at me as if he thought I was weak-minded."
"Pooh! I shouldn't let that worry me."
"I don't, only ... do you know, that man has a curious effect on me,
something sort of paralysing.... I can't explain it, quite."
"Does he? How do you mean?"
She told him, on an impulse, about her dream and her subsequent
recognition of the python as a symbol of the doctor's personality.
"It sounds silly, but it was really quite horrible," she ended with a
little laugh. "To feel I was in the creature's power, and that it
didn't _care_, it had no feeling--I was simply something to be crushed,
annihilated."
"He _is_ a cold-blooded sort of person," said Roger thoughtfully. "Not
that it matters much, if, as my aunt says, he is so good at his job.
Only, of course, it is pretty apt to prevent his becoming exactly
popular."
"That wouldn't worry him. He only wants to be able to live in order to
carry on research."
When the car turned in at the drive Roger fancied he saw a thread of
light from one of the drawing-room windows. The next instant it was
gone, and he decided he had been mistaken; it must have been a trick of
the moonlight. The house loomed dark before them. He garaged the car,
and escorting Esther upstairs, parted from her at the end of the short
passage leading to her room.
"Thanks for a gorgeous time," she whispered, careful not to make a
noise.
He thought how lovely she was as she looked up at him, her lashes
curving back from her lambent eyes, the soft curls of her hair ruffling
back from her warm forehead.
"If you've really liked it," he said, detaining her hand a little
longer than was necessary, "you'll come with me again?"
She smiled and was gone, the brief adieu leaving each of them to wonder
how much more was meant than the polite commonplaces uttered.
Roger leaned out of his own window for ten minutes smoking, his mind
full of a pleasant excitement. Disturbing, too, for with the
unaccustomed feeling that perhaps at last he had found a girl he was
willing to let himself fall in love with came a doubt, a cautious
warning to hesitate, not to go too fast. She was delightful, he firmly
believed her to be transparent and sincere, but men have been taken in
only too easily when their senses have been stirred as his had been
to-night. No, he must not rush things; he must wait a little and be
sure, not so much of himself as of her; he must be convinced that she
cared for him, that she was not merely dazzled by what he could give
her one day.... That was the drawback of having money, if only in
prospect. Already, for some years in fact, he had been pursued by
mercenary maidens and their mothers. He had a rooted aversion to the
whole breed, and a latent fear that one day he would be taken in after
all. He knew himself to be impressionable and impulsive; still, behind
these dangerous qualities lay a certain hard, deliberate common sense
that had saved him in more than one perilous situation. Sternly he
informed himself that he had known Esther Rowe about three days. In
short, he must not be a fool.
Something, the champagne perhaps, had made him very thirsty. Finding
his bottle of Evian water almost empty, he decided to explore the
kitchen region below to secure another. He knew where the mineral
waters were kept--in a small cupboard next to the wine-cellar. He
sallied forth and descended the back stairs very quietly, in order not
to disturb anyone. After poking about for a few moments he found what
he wanted. There was nothing to open it with, however. Where was the
thing kept? Ah, of course, in the sideboard, he remembered.
The swing-door into the dining-room made no noise; he discovered the
little implement in the drawer with the table-knives and, wrenching off
the metal cap from the bottle, turned to go back the way he had come.
All at once he stopped stock-still and listened. Then he glanced
towards the door that led into the drawing-room. Had he heard
whispered voices?
For thirty seconds he remained rooted to the spot, his ears strained to
catch a repetition of the fancied sound. It had been only a faint
murmur; he might have been mistaken ... yes, there it was again, a sort
of choked, sibilant whisper coming from the adjoining room. Hardly had
he made sure of it when there fell on his ears a small crash, sharp, as
of some object dropped on the parquet. It was followed by a smothered
exclamation in a man's voice, brief and profane.
With but one idea in his mind--burglars--he crossed to the drawing-room
door and flung it wide. That he was unarmed did not enter his thoughts.
The drawing-room was in utter darkness. He reached for the nearby
switch and flooded the room in a blaze of light.