LITMIR.BIZ

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had made fifteen people buy his book, and secured him for dinner next day and a dance in the following week.

      ‘I went to see your film twice,’ she pouted, ‘and there you were, standing with hundreds and dozens of dead antelopes and things stacked all around you—and I never got as much as tsetse-fly’s whisker out of the lot. I shall never forget that you sent Barbara all those lovely stickers and beads and things as a wedding-present, and forgot me—me, who was once more than a sister to you—absolutely. Never, never.’

      ‘My dear Roly-Poly,’ grinned Gore placidly, ‘you forget that I sent you a very beautiful and costly flower-bowl when you were entitled to a wedding-present—which was, pray recollect, four years before I became a movie-star—’

      ‘For Heaven’s sake,’ cried Mrs Arndale, ‘don’t remind me how long I’ve been married to Cecil. It’s not fair to him, poor dear. It embitters me so, and he has a perfectly ghastly time when I’m embittered.’

      Cecil Arndale laughed—a little foolishly, as he had always laughed, his rather prominent blue eyes glistening slightly in his large, brick-red face. He had grown fat, Gore observed—much too fat for a man of thirty-nine—and his fatness accentuated that slight weakness of mouth and chin that had always marred his good-humoured, healthy, conventional good looks. His laugh faded again instantly into abstraction; his blue eyes stared vacantly across the room, while his lips twisted and puckered and smoothed themselves out again restlessly. Too much food, Gore conjectured—altogether too much drink—too much money—too easy a life of it. Poor old Cecil. He had always threatened to go soft. With some little difficulty Gore suppressed the recollection that this hefty, healthy six-footer had spent the war in England, and, incidentally, doubled during it the fortune which he had inherited from his father. Well, someone had had to stay at home and build ships. Besides, Arndale had married in 1915. And anyhow all that was his own affair. Gore, who had been through the business from start to finish, was not disposed to overrate the advantages to be derived from that experience. He wondered a little, none the less, just what the plump, outspoken little Roly-Poly had thought, privately, of her spouse’s devotion to his business—say, in March, 1918.

      ‘How’s your brother?’ he asked her. ‘I fancied I caught a glimpse of a face that might have been his—brought up to date—passing me on the Promenade in a most vicious-looking two-seater. But I haven’t run into him yet, end-on, so to speak—’

      ‘Bertie? He lives just beside you. You’re staying at the Riverside, aren’t you? He has a flat in Selkirk Place at present—just across the way … at the other side of the Green. Number 73. You’ll find him there any morning up to lunch-time in bed.’

      ‘Still unattached?’

      ‘We hope so.’

      ‘What does he do all day?’

      Mrs Arndale shrugged her pretty shoulders.

      ‘He plays a good deal of golf, I believe—races a good deal—hunts a little. If he happens not to be away, and if it’s too wet to do anything else, he runs down to the Yard in his car, smokes a cigarette, and runs back to change. I have calculated that on an average Bertie changes seven times a day.’

      ‘Oh, then he’s attached to the Yard now, is he?’

      ‘Cecil says so. I suppose Cecil knows. It’s his Yard.’

      Arndale came out of his abstracted silence for a moment.

      ‘Bertie’s all right,’ he said. ‘Bit of an ass about women, that’s all.’

      ‘We all are, thank Heaven,’ smiled Gore—‘er … until we’re forty … or … er … thirty-nine.’

      Arndale’s eyes regarded him blankly.

      ‘Eh? Thirty-nine? No. Bertie’s nothing like that …’ With a visible effort he concentrated upon his calculation. ‘Bertie’s thirty—or thirty-one. Why, hang it, old chap—I’m thirty-nine.’

      He smiled vaguely and strolled away. Gore caught his wife’s eye.

      ‘What’s the trouble, Roly-Poly?’ he asked bluntly.

      She shrugged.

      ‘Heaven knows. Cecil’s always like that now … I’m frightfully worried about it, really. It’s not money, I know. We’re simply revoltingly well-off … It’s some sort of blight … something mental.’ She smiled wryly. ‘Sometimes I think it’s I who am responsible for it … of course I’ve always known that I’m not the right person … And yet we get on quite well … He’s quite fond of me, really, in his way … Oh, don’t let us talk about it any more. Let’s talk about you. It’s so absolutely ripping to see your old phiz again, Wick.’

      As she patted his arm with a little impulsive gesture the door reopened and Clegg announced the guests of honour.

      ‘Sir James and Lady Wellmore and Miss Heathman.’

      While the Melhuishs chatted for a moment with the new arrivals Gore took stock of them with something like dismay. Wellmore, whom he remembered as a brisk, cheerful, keen-eyed middle-aged man, looked now every day of a tired, peevish, short-sighted sixty-five. Lady Wellmore—could that large-bosomed, broad-hipped, triple-chinned woman be the Phyllis Heathman of the old days? And that sallow, weary-eyed, bony-necked female with the nervously-flickering smile—could that be the once really quite pretty Angela? Good Lord.

      His hostess’s voice claimed his attention.

      ‘You have met Colonel Gore before, Sir James, I think.’

      Wellmore’s tired eyes rested on the younger man’s face perfunctorily, as he allowed his flabby, damp hand to be shaken.

      ‘Yes,’ he said briefly, ‘I remember you. Nineteen-thirteen. You were stationed at Fieldbrook Barracks. In the Westshires. One of the prettiest shots I ever saw. Been in Africa, haven’t you? Wonder you didn’t stay there instead of coming back to this filthy climate. My wife has your book. But I’ve no time to read books. Never had.’

      He passed on towards the fireplace and bent to warm his hands at the cheerful blaze wearily, his back to the room. Chairman of the United Tobacco Company—owner of three millions—master of six thousand lives—he could afford to dispense with ceremony.

      But Lady Wellmore was graciousness itself. She had simply revelled in his book—especially the parts about the pigmies—she considered the parts about the pigmies perfectly fascinating. And the film—perfectly wonderful. She had been absolutely thrilled when dear Barbara had told her that she was to meet him again that night. She rounded him up in a cul-de-sac formed by a small table, two chairs, the flank of the big piano, and her sister.

      ‘Angela, have you forgotten Colonel Gore? He has been regarding you with the most reproachful of eyes.’

      Angela Heathman smiled nervously and held out a languid hand. At close quarters the sallow, haggard weariness of her face, with its drawn lips and shadowed eyes, was still more noticeable. Beside her sister’s florid exuberance her faded thinness was accentuated painfully. Her smile faded, her eyes looked beyond him in brooding abstraction. She said nothing—withdrew her hand listlessly, and appeared to have forgotten the existence of the people who surrounded her.

      ‘Nerves, poor thing,’ Gore reflected. ‘Another of ’em that doesn’t know why she was born.’

      As a silvery-toned clock somewhere in the room chimed eight fleetly, Clegg announced the last guest.

      ‘Mr Barrington.’

      For a moment the hum of voices died. The man who had entered surveyed the occupants of the room with smiling composure as he moved towards his hostess.

      ‘My wife has charged me with the most abject of apologies, Mrs Melhuish. She had hoped until the last moment to be able to come.’

      ‘We are so sorry,’ Mrs Melhuish assured him. ‘But it would have been folly for her to have ventured

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