I tumbled down into reality, hot-handed and self-conscious, with my face aflame, and began to stammer my apologies. He would not listen to me.
“I told you at the beginning of lunch you had a lovely and unusual name,” he said. “I shall go further, if you will forgive me, and say that it becomes you as well as it became your father. I’ve enjoyed this hour with you more than I have enjoyed anything for a very long time. You’ve taken me out of myself, out of despondency and introspection, both of which have been my devils for a year.”
I looked at him, and believed he spoke the truth; he seemed less fettered than he had been before, more modern, more human; he was not hemmed in by shadows.
“You know,” he said, “we’ve got a bond in common, you and I. We are both alone in the world. Oh, I’ve got a sister, though we don’t see much of each other, and an ancient grandmother whom I pay duty visits to three times a year, but neither of them make for companionship. I shall have to congratulate Mrs. Van Hopper. You’re cheap at ninety pounds a year.”
“You forget,” I said, “you have a home and I have none.”
The moment I spoke I regretted my words, for the secret, inscrutable look came back in his eyes again, and once again I suffered the intolerable discomfort that floods one after lack of tact. He bent his head to light a cigarette, and did not reply immediately.
“An empty house can be as lonely as a full hotel,” he said at length. “The trouble is that it is less impersonal.” He hesitated, and for a moment I thought he was going to talk of Manderley at last, but something held him back, some phobia that struggled to the surface of his mind and won supremacy, for he blew out his match and his flash of confidence at the same time.
“So the friend of the bosom has a holiday?” he said, on a level plane again, an easy camaraderie between us. “What does she propose to do with it?”
I thought of the cobbled square in Monaco and the house with the narrow window. I could be off there by three o’clock with my sketchbook and pencil, and I told him as much, a little shyly perhaps, like all untalented persons with a pet hobby.
“I’ll drive you there in the car,” he said, and would not listen to protests.
I remembered Mrs. Van Hopper’s warning of the night before about putting myself forward and was embarrassed that he might think my talk of Monaco was a subterfuge to win a lift. It was so blatantly the type of thing that she would do herself, and I did not want him to bracket us together. I had already risen in importance from my lunch with him, for as we got up from the table the little ma?tre d’h?tel rushed forward to pull away my chair. He bowed and smiled—a total change from his usual attitude of indifference—picked up my handkerchief that had fallen on the floor, and hoped “mademoiselle had enjoyed her lunch.” Even the page boy by the swing doors glanced at me with respect. My companion accepted it as natural, of course; he knew nothing of the ill-carved ham of yesterday. I found the change depressing, it made me despise myself. I remembered my father and his scorn of superficial snobbery.
“What are you thinking about?” We were walking along the corridor to the lounge, and looking up I saw his eyes fixed on me in curiosity.
“Has something annoyed you?” he said.
The attentions of the ma?tre d’h?tel had opened up a train of thought, and as we drank coffee I told him about Blaize, the dressmaker. She had been so pleased when Mrs. Van Hopper had bought three frocks, and I, taking her to the lift afterwards, had pictured her working upon them in her own small salon, behind the stuffy little shop, with a consumptive son wasting upon her sofa. I could see her, with tired eyes, threading needles, and the floor covered with snippets of material.
“Well?” he said smiling, “wasn’t your picture true?”
“I don’t know,” I said, “I never found out.” And I told him how I had rung the bell for the lift, and as I had done so she had fumbled in her bag and gave me a note for a hundred francs. “Here,” she had whispered, her tone intimate and unpleasant, “I want you to accept this small commission in return for bringing your patron to my shop.” When I had refused, scarlet with embarrassment, she had shrugged her shoulders disagreeably. “Just as you like,” she had said, “but I assure you it’s quite usual. Perhaps you would rather have a frock. Come along to the shop sometime without Madame and I will fix you up without charging you a sou.” Somehow, I don’t know why, I had been aware of that sick, unhealthy feeling I had experienced as a child when turning the pages of a forbidden book. The vision of the consumptive son faded, and in its stead arose the picture of myself had I been different, pocketing that greasy note with an understanding smile, and perhaps slipping round to Blaize’s shop on this my free afternoon and coming away with a frock I had not paid for.