The Pretty Lady | Page 2

exclaimed--and the faint cry was
dragged out of her, out of the bottom of her heart, by what she saw:
"My god! How mournful it is!"
Lise Larivaudière, a stout and benevolent Bruxelloise, agreed with
uncomprehending indulgence. The two chatted together for a few
moments, each ceremoniously addressing the other as "Madame,"
"Madame," and then they parted, insinuating themselves separately into
the slow, confused traffic of the Promenade.
Chapter 2
THE POWER
Christine knew Piccadilly, Leicester Square, Regent Street, a bit of
Oxford Street, the Green Park, Hyde Park, Victoria Station, Charing
Cross. Beyond these, London, measureless as the future and the past,
surrounded her with the unknown. But she had not been afraid, because
of her conviction that men were much the same everywhere, and that
she had power over them. She did not exercise this power consciously;
she had merely to exist and it exercised itself. For her this power was
the mystical central fact of the universe. Now, however, as she stood in
the Promenade, it seemed to her that something uncanny had happened
to the universe. Surely it had shifted from its pivot! Her basic
conviction trembled. Men were not the same everywhere, and her
power over them was a delusion. Englishmen were incomprehensible;
they were not human; they were apart. The memory of the hundreds of
Englishmen who had yielded to her power in Paris (for she had
specialised in travelling Englishmen) could not re-establish her
conviction as to the sameness of men. The presence of her professed
rivals of various nationalities in the Promenade could not restore it
either. The Promenade in its cold, prim languor was the very negation
of desire. She was afraid. She foresaw ruin for herself in this London,
inclement, misty and inscrutable.
And then she noticed a man looking at her, and she was herself again
and the universe was itself again. She had a sensation of warmth and

heavenly reassurance, just as though she had drunk an anisette or a
crême de menthe. Her features took on an innocent expression; the
characteristic puckering of the brows denoted not discontent, but a
gentle concern for the whole world and also virginal curiosity. The man
passed her. She did not stir. Presently he emerged afresh out of the
moving knots of promenaders and discreetly approached her. She did
not smile, but her eyes lighted with a faint amiable
benevolence--scarcely perceptible, doubtful, deniable even, but enough.
The man stopped. She at once gave a frank, kind smile, which changed
all her face. He raised his hat an inch or so. She liked men to raise their
hats. Clearly he was a gentleman of means, though in morning dress.
His cigar had a very fine aroma. She classed him in half a second and
was happy. He spoke to her in French, with a slight, unmistakable
English accent, but very good, easy, conversational French--French
French. She responded almost ecstatically:
"Ah, you speak French!"
She was too excited to play the usual comedy, so flattering to most
Englishmen, of pretending that she thought from his speech that he was
a Frenchman. The French so well spoken from a man's mouth in
London most marvellously enheartened her and encouraged her in the
perilous enterprise of her career. She was candidly grateful to him for
speaking French.
He said after a moment:
"You have not at all a fatigued air, but would it not be preferable to sit
down?"
A man of the world! He could phrase his politeness. Ah! There were
none like an Englishman of the world. Frenchmen, delightfully
courteous up to a point, were unsatisfactory past that point. Frenchmen
of the south were detestable, and she hated them.
"You have not been in London long?" said the man, leading her away
to the lounge.

She observed then that, despite his national phlegm, he was in a state of
rather intense excitation. Luck! Enormous luck! And also an augury for
the future! She was professing in London for the first time in her life;
she had not been in the Promenade for five minutes; and lo! the ideal
admirer. For he was not young. What a fine omen for her profound
mysticism and superstitiousness!
Chapter 3
THE FLAT
Her flat was in Cork Street. As soon as they entered it the man
remarked on its warmth and its cosiness, so agreeable after the
November streets. Christine only smiled. It was a long, narrow flat--a
small sitting-room with a piano and a sideboard, opening into a larger
bedroom shaped like a thick L. The short top of the L, not cut off from
the rest of the room, was installed as a cabinet de toilette, but it had a
divan. From the divan, behind which was a heavily curtained window,
you could see right through the