Lontaine brought back a gratified countenance from the telephone booths.
As he had promised, so had he performed. This cinema chap he knew, Culp,
had professed himself only too delighted. Rum name, what? A rum
customer, if you asked Lontaine, diamond in the rough and all that sort
of thing, one of the biggest guns in the American cinema to boot.
Dobbin wanted to know if Mr. Culp wasn't the husband of Alma Daley, the
motion-picture actress. Lontaine said he was. Extraordinary pair.
Married a few years ago when they were both stoney, absolutely. Now look
at them; Culp a millionaire and better, Miss Daley one of the most
popular stars. You might say he'd made her and she'd made him. Showed
the value of team-work in marriage, what? You pulled together, and
nothing could stop you. You pulled in opposite directions, and what
happened? You stood still! What?
(Lucinda remarked the patient smile with which Fanny listened. But
repetition is, after all, a notorious idiosyncrasy of the married male.)
Charming little woman, Miss Daley. As it happened, she was working in a
picture at the studio now. Rare luck; they'd get a look in at practical
producing methods in addition to getting shot for their tests. Not bad,
what?
Somebody echoed "shot" with a puzzled inflection. But that term, it
appeared, was studio slang; one was shot when one was photographed by a
motion-picture camera. No doubt because they first aimed the camera at
one, then turned the crank--like a machine-gun, Lontaine meant to say.
Lucinda discovered that it was already three o'clock, and wondered how
long they would need to get properly shot. Lontaine protested it would
take no time at all. Astonishing chaps, these American cinema people,
absolutely full of push and bounce, did everything in jig-time, if you
knew what he meant.
With two cars at its disposal, the party split up into threes, Mrs.
Sedley, Mrs. Guest, and Lontaine leading the way. On the point of
entering her own car after Fanny, however, Lucinda recalled her promise
to look in at the bridge-tea for the Italian Milk Fund, and bidding
Dobbin keep Fanny amused while they waited for her, turned back into the
hotel to telephone Mrs. Wade that she would be a little late.
Having seen no more of Bellamy since their encounter near the
cloak-room, she had assumed that he had taken her at her word, and had
dismissed from her calculations the possibility of his returning. The
surprise was so much the more unwelcome, consequently, when on leaving
the telephone booth she saw her husband with his hat on the back of his
head and his arms full of lavender orchids, wavering irresolutely in the
entrance to the Palm Room, surveying with a dashed expression its now
all but deserted spaces; a festive spectacle that left no room for
surmise as to what he had been up to. And with sickening contempt added
to the bitterness already rankling in her heart, Lucinda made hastily
for the revolving door.
Simultaneously Bel caught sight of her and, with a blurred travesty of
his really charming smile, and a faltering parody of that air of gallant
alacrity which she had once thought so engaging, moved to intercept
Lucinda. And finding her escape cut off, she paused and awaited him with
a stony countenance.
"Ah! there you are, eh, Linda! 'Fraid I'd missed you. Sorry couldn't get
back sooner, but----"
"I'm not," Lucinda interrupted.
"Had to go over to Thorley's to find these orchids...." Bel extended his
burden as if to transfer it to Lucinda's arms and, when she prevented
this by falling back a pace, looked both pained and puzzled. "Ah--what
say? What's matter?"
"I said," Lucinda replied icily, "I'm not sorry you couldn't get here
sooner. Surely you can't imagine I'd care to have my friends see you as
you are, in the middle of the afternoon. It's bad enough to have them
know you get in this condition nearly every night."
"But--look here, Linda: be reasonable----"
"I think I have been--what you call reasonable--long enough--too long!"
Bellamy hesitated, nervously moistening his lips, glancing sidelong this
way and that. But there was nobody in the foyer at the moment but
themselves; even the coatroom girls had retired to their office and were
well out of ear-shot of the quiet conversational key which, for all her
indignation, Lucinda had adopted. For all of which the man should have
been abjectly grateful. Instead of which (such is the wicked way of
drink) Bellamy took heart of these circumstances, their temporary
isolation and Lucinda's calculated quietness, and offered to bluster it
out.
"Here--take these flowers, won't you? Plenty for you and all your
friends. Tha's what kept me so long--had to go all over to find enough."
Again Lucinda defeated his attempt to disburden himself. "Oh, Bel!" she
cried sadly--"how can you be such a fool?"
"How'm I a fool? Like flowers, don't you? Thought I was going to please
you.... And this is what I get!"
"You know all the orchids in New York couldn't make up for your
drinking."
"Why cut up so nasty about a little drink or two? Way you talk, anyone'd
think I was reeling."
"You will be before night, if you keep this up."
"Well, I'm not going to keep it up. I've made arrangements to have the
afternoon free, just to be with you. We'll go somewhere--do
something----"
"Thank you: I'd rather not."
"Don't talk rot." Most unwisely, Bellamy essayed the masterful method.
"Of course we'll go some place----"
"We will not," Lucinda told him inflexibly. "My afternoon is booked full
up already, and----"
"Where you going? I don't mind tagging along----"
"Sorry, but I don't want you."
Injudiciously again, Bellamy elected to show his teeth, stepped closer
to Lucinda and with ugly deliberation demanded: "See here: where you
going? I've got a right to know----"
"Have you, Bel? Think again. I never ask you such questions. If I did,
you'd either lose your temper or lie to me, and justify yourself by
asserting that no man ought to be asked to stand prying into his
affairs. So--I leave you to your affairs--and only ask that you leave me
to mine."
"Meaning you won't tell me where you're going?"
Lucinda shrugged and turned away; but Bellamy swung in between her and
the exit.
"See here, Linda! there are limits to my patience."
"And to mine--and you have found them. Let me go."
She didn't move, but her face had lost colour, her eyes had grown
dangerous. Neither spoke in that clash of wills until Bellamy's
weakened, his eyes shifted, and he stepped aside, slightly sobered.
"Please!" he begged in a turn of penitence. "Didn't mean.... Frightfully
sorry if I've been an ass; but--you know--pretty well shot to pieces
last night--had to pull myself together somehow to talk business at
luncheon----"
"Oh! it was a business luncheon, then?" asked Lucinda sweetly, pausing.
"Of course."
With an ominous smile she commented: "It has come to that already, has
it?"
"Ah--what d'you mean?"
"Since you tell me it was a business luncheon, you leave me to infer
that your affair with Amelie has reached the point where you take her to
the Clique Club to talk terms." Bellamy's jaw sagged, his eyes were
dashed with consternation. "What else do you wish me to think, Bellamy?"
He made a pitiable effort to pull himself together. "Look here, Linda:
you're all wrong about this--misinformed. I can explain----"
"You forget I know all your explanations, Bel; I've heard them all too
often!"
"But--but you must give me a chance! Damn it, you can't refuse----!"
"Can't I? Go home, Bel, get some sleep. When you wake up, if you still
think you have anything to say--consider it carefully before you ask me
to listen. Remember what I tell you now: you've lied to me for the last
time, one more lie will end everything between us, finally and for all
time!"
Conscious though she was that her wrath was righteous, she experienced
an instant of irresolution, of yielding and pity excited by the almost
dog-like appeal in his eyes. But immediately she remembered Amelie,
hardened her heart and, leaving him agape, pushed through the door to
the street.
And instantly she effected one of those shifts of which few but the
sensitive know the secret, who must hide their hurts from alien eyes
though they spend all their strength in the effort; instantly she
sloughed every sign of her anger and with smiling face went to rejoin
Fanny and Dobbin.
As soon as she appeared the latter jumped out of the car and offered his
hand. He said something in a jocular vein, and Lucinda must have replied
to the point, for she heard him chuckle; but she could not, a minute
later, recollect one word of what had passed between them.
With her hand resting on Dobbin's she glanced back and saw
Bellamy--still with his armful of orchids--emerge from the hotel. He
halted, his face darkening as he watched Daubeney follow Lucinda into
the car. It drew away quickly, giving him no chance to see for himself
that it held another passenger.
He stood still upon the steps, deep in sombre and chagrined reflection,
till a touch on his arm and a civil "Pardon!" roused him to the fact
that he was obstructing the fairway. As he moved aside he was hailed by
name.
"Well, I'm damned! Bellamy Druce drunk, dressed up, and highly
perfumed."
In his turn, he recognized the speaker, a personage of the theatrical
world with modest social aspirations and a noble cellar.
"Why, hello, Whittington!" said Bellamy, smiling in spite of his
disgruntlement, to see that carved mask of a wise clown upturned to his.
"All by yourself? What's happened to the girl crop you should be so
lonesome?"
Without direct reply, Mr. Freddie Whittington linked his arm and began
to walk toward Fifth avenue.
"Just the man I'm looking for," he declared without a smile. "Come
along. Got a thousand women I want you to meet 'safternoon. They'll take
care of your orchids."
"Well," Bellamy conceded, "that sounds reasonable. But what do you say,
we drop in at the Club? Got something there won't do us any good--in my
locker."