The Pretty Lady | Page 5

flatterest me. Thou sayest that to flatter me."
"No, no. I assure you I went to the Marigny every night for five nights
afterwards in order to find you."
"But the Marigny is not my regular music-hall. Olympia is my regular
music-hall."
"I went to Olympia and all the other halls, too, each night."
"Ah, yes! Then I must have left Paris. But why, my poor friend, why
didst thou not speak to me at the Marigny? I was alone."
"I don't know. I hesitated. I suppose I was afraid."

"Thou!"
"So to-night I was terribly content to meet you. When I saw that it was
really you I could not believe my eyes."
She understood now his agitation on first accosting her in the
Promenade. The affair very pleasantly grew more serious for her. She
liked him. He had nice eyes. He was fairly tall and broadly built, but
not a bit stout. Neither dark nor blond. Not handsome, and yet ...
beneath a certain superficial freedom, he was reserved. He had
beautiful manners. He was refined, and he was refined in love; and yet
he knew something. She very highly esteemed refinement in a man.
She had never met a refined woman, and was convinced that few such
existed. Of course he was rich. She could be quite sure, from his way of
handling money, that he was accustomed to handling money. She
would swear he was a bachelor merely on the evidence of his eyes....
Yes, the affair had lovely possibilities. Afraid to speak to her, and then
ran round Paris after her for five nights! Had he, then, had the
lightning-stroke from her? It appeared so. And why not? She was not
like other girls, and this she had always known. She did precisely the
same things as other girls did. True. But somehow, subtly, inexplicably,
when she did them they were not the same things. The proof: he, so
refined and distinguished himself, had felt the difference. She became
very tender.
"To think," she murmured, "that only on that one night in all my life
did I go to the Marigny! And you saw me!"
The coincidence frightened her--she might have missed this nice,
dependable, admiring creature for ever. But the coincidence also
delighted her, strengthening her superstition. The hand of destiny was
obviously in this affair. Was it not astounding that on one night of all
nights he should have been at the Marigny? Was it not still more
astounding that on one night of all nights he should have been in the
Promenade in Leicester Square?... The affair was ordained since before
the beginning of time. Therefore it was serious.
"Ah, my friend!" she said. "If only you had spoken to me that night at

the Marigny, you might have saved me from troubles
frightful--fantastic."
"How?"
He had confided in her--and at the right moment. With her human lore
she could not have respected a man who had begun by admitting to a
strange and unproved woman that for five days and nights he had gone
mad about her. To do so would have been folly on his part. But having
withheld his wild secret, he had charmingly showed, by the gesture of
opening and then shutting the door, that at last it was too strong for his
control. Such candour deserved candour in return. Despite his age, he
looked just then attractively, sympathetically boyish. He was a
benevolent creature. The responsive kindliness of his enquiring "How?"
was beyond question genuine. Once more, in the warm and
dark-glowing comfort of her home, the contrast between the masculine,
thick rough overcoat and the feminine, diaphanous, useless kimono
appealed to her soul. It seemed to justify, even to call for, confidence
from her to him.
The Italian woman behind the door coughed impatiently and was not
heard.
Chapter 5
OSTEND
In July she had gone to Ostend with an American. A gentleman, but
mad. One of those men with a fixed idea that everything would always
be all right and that nothing really and permanently uncomfortable
could possibly happen. A very fair man, with red hair, and radiating
wrinkles all round his eyes--phenomenon due to his humorous outlook
on the world. He laughed at her because she travelled with all her
bonds of the City of Paris on her person. He had met her one night, and
the next morning suggested the Ostend excursion. Too sudden, too
capricious, of course; but she had always desired to see the
cosmopolitanism of Ostend. Trouville she did not like, as you had sand
with every meal if you lived near the front. Hotel Astoria at Ostend.

Complete flat in the hotel. Very chic. The red-haired one, the rouquin,
had broad ideas, very broad ideas, of what was due to a woman.