He got up at once, pushing back his chair. “Don’t let me keep you,” he said. “Fashions change so quickly nowadays they may even have altered by the time you get upstairs.”
The sting did not touch her, she accepted it as a pleasantry. “It’s so delightful to have run into you like this, Mr. de Winter,” she said, as we went towards the lift; “now I’ve been brave enough to break the ice I hope I shall see something of you. You must come and have a drink sometime in the suite. I may have one or two people coming in tomorrow evening. Why not join us?” I turned away so that I should not watch him search for an excuse.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, “tomorrow I am probably driving to Sospel, I’m not sure when I shall get back.”
Reluctantly she left it, but we still hovered at the entrance to the lift.
“I hope they’ve given you a good room; the place is half empty, so if you are uncomfortable mind you make a fuss. Your valet has unpacked for you, I suppose?” This familiarity was excessive, even for her, and I caught a glimpse of his expression.
“I don’t possess one,” he said quietly; “perhaps you would like to do it for me?”
This time his shaft had found its mark, for she reddened, and laughed a little awkwardly.
“Why, I hardly think…” she began, and then suddenly, and unbelievably, she turned upon me, “Perhaps you could make yourself useful to Mr. de Winter, if he wants anything done. You’re a capable child in many ways.”
There was a momentary pause, while I stood stricken, waiting for his answer. He looked down at us, mocking, faintly sardonic, a ghost of a smile on his lips.
“A charming suggestion,” he said, “but I cling to the family motto. He travels the fastest who travels alone. Perhaps you have not heard of it.”
And without waiting for her answer he turned and left us.
“What a funny thing,” said Mrs. Van Hopper, as we went upstairs in the lift. “Do you suppose that sudden departure was a form of humor? Men do such extraordinary things. I remember a well-known writer once who used to dart down the Service staircase whenever he saw me coming. I suppose he had a penchant for me and wasn’t sure of himself. However, I was younger then.”
The lift stopped with a jerk. We arrived at our floor. The page boy flung open the gates. “By the way, dear,” she said, as we walked along the corridor, “don’t think I mean to be unkind, but you put yourself just a teeny bit forward this afternoon. Your efforts to monopolize the conversation quite embarrassed me, and I’m sure it did him. Men loathe that sort of thing.”
I said nothing. There seemed no possible reply. “Oh, come, don’t sulk,” she laughed, and shrugged her shoulders; “after all, I am responsible for your behavior here, and surely you can accept advice from a woman old enough to be your mother. Eh bien, Blaize, je viens…” and humming a tune she went into the bedroom where the dressmaker was waiting for her.
I knelt on the window seat and looked out upon the afternoon. The sun shone very brightly still, and there was a gay high wind. In half an hour we should be sitting to our bridge, the windows tightly closed, the central heating turned to the full. I thought of the ashtrays I would have to clear, and how the squashed stubs, stained with lipstick, would sprawl in company with discarded chocolate creams. Bridge does not come easily to a mind brought up on Snap and Happy Families; besides, it bored her friends to play with me.
I felt my youthful presence put a curb upon their conversation, much as a parlor-maid does until the arrival of dessert, and they could not fling themselves so easily into the melting pot of scandal and insinuation. Her men-friends would assume a sort of forced heartiness and ask me jocular questions about history or painting, guessing I had not long left school and that this would be my only form of conversation.
I sighed, and turned away from the window. The sun was so full of promise, and the sea was whipped white with a merry wind. I thought of that corner of Monaco which I had passed a day or two ago, and where a crooked house leaned to a cobbled square. High up in the tumbled roof there was a window, narrow as a slit. It might have held a presence medieval; and, reaching to the desk for pencil and paper, I sketched in fancy with an absent mind a profile, pale and aquiline. A somber eye, a high-bridged nose, a scornful upper lip. And I added a pointed beard and lace at the throat, as the painter had done, long ago in a different time.
Someone knocked at the door, and the lift-boy came in with a note in his hand. “Madame is in the bedroom,” I told him but he shook his head and said it was for me. I opened it, and found a single sheet of notepaper inside, with a few words written in an unfamiliar hand.