In a large fluid but nervous handwriting, the following letter lay, read,
as it were: Bertha still keeping her eye on it from a distance:
“DEAR BERTHA,—I am writing at the Gare St. Lazare, on my way
to England. You have made things much easier for me in one way
of course, far more difficult in another. Parenthetically, I
may mention that the whimsical happenings between you and your
absurd countryman in full moonlight are known to me. They were
recounted with a wealth of detail that left nothing to the
imagination, happily for my peculiar possessive sensitiveness,
known to you. I don’t know whether that little red-headed
bitch—the colour of Iscariot, so perhaps she is—is a friend of
yours? Kreisler! I was offered an introduction to him the other
day, which I refused. It seems he has introduced himself!
“Before, I had contemplated retiring to a little distance
for the purpose of reflection. This last _coup_ of yours
necessitates a much further _recul_, withdrawal—a couple of
hundred miles at least, I have judged. And as far as I can see
I shall be some months—say ten—away. I am not wise enough to
take your action _au pied de la lettre_; nevertheless, you
may consider yourself free as women go. What I mean is you
need not trouble to restrain the exuberance of your exploits
in future. (What rubbish!) Let them develop naturally, right
up to _fiançailles_, or elsewhere. I have a very German idea.
Why should not girls have two or three fiancés? Not two or
three husbands. But fiancé, especially nowadays, is an elastic
term. Why shouldn’t fiancé take the place of husband? It is a
very respectable word: a very respectable state. But my idea
was that of a club, organized around the fiancée. You seem to
me cut out for such a club. A man might spend quite a pleasant
time with the other fiancés. A fine science of women would be
developed, perhaps along Oriental lines a little. Then a man
would remember the different clubs he had belonged to. Some
very beautiful women might have a sort of University settled
near them. To have belonged to one of these celebrated but
ephemeral institutions would insure a man success with less
illustrious queens. ‘He was a fiancé of Fräulein Stück’s,
you know,’ would carry prestige. You have Germanized me in a
horrible way! Anyhow, you may count on me should you think of
starting a little institution of that sort. My address for the
next few months will be 10 Waterford Street, London, W.C.—Yours,
“SORBETT.”
He spelt his name with two T’s because Bertha had never disciplined
herself to suppress final consonants.
Bertha was in her little kitchen. It was near the front door. Next to it
was her studio or _salon_, then bedroom: along a passage at right angles
the rooms rented by Clara Goenthner, her friend.
The letter had been laid on the table, by the side of which stood the
large gas-stove, like a safe, its gas stars, on top, blasting away
luridly at pans and saucepans with Bertha’s breakfast. While busying
herself with eggs and coffee, she gazed over her arm reflectively at the
letter. It was a couple of inches too far away for her to be able to read
it.
The postman had come ten minutes before. It was now four days after the
dance, and since she had last seen Tarr. She had “felt” he would come on
that particular morning. The belief in woman’s intuition is not confined,
of course, to men. “Could he have heard anything of the Kreisler
incident?” she had asked herself. The possibility of this was terrifying.
But perhaps it would be as well if he had. It might at any future time
crop up. And what things had happened when other older things had come to
light suddenly! She would tell him if he had not already heard. He should
hear it from her. The great boulevard sacrifice of the other night had
appeared folly, long ago. But peculiarly free from any form of spite—she
did not feel unkindly towards Kreisler.
So Sorbert was expected to breakfast, on the authority of her intuition.
Bread was being fried in fat. What manner of man would appear, how far
_renseigné_—or if _not_ informed, still all their other difficulties were
there inevitably enough? Experience, however, suggested such breakfast as
pleased him. Could fried toast and honey play a part in such troubles?
Ah, yes. Troubles often reduced themselves to fried bread and honey:
they could sow troubles, why not help to quell troubles? But she had
had a second intuition that he _knew_. Not knowing how stormy their
interview might be she neglected no minute precautions—and these were the
touching ones—any more than the sailor would neglect to stow away even
the smallest of his sails, I suppose, at the sulky approach of a simoom.
The simoom, however, had left her becalmed and taken the train for Dieppe
instead of coming in her direction.