‘Why not?’
‘I’d better go now.’
‘Why?’
‘Just wanted to see you. Damned silly idea. Want to get dressed and come down? He’s got the car just up the street.’
‘The count?’
‘Himself. And a chauffeur in livery. Going to drive me around and have breakfast in the Bois. Hampers. Got it all at Zelli’s. Dozen bottles of Mumms. Tempt you?’
‘I have to work in the morning,’ I said. ‘I’m too far behind you now to catch up and be any fun.’
‘Don’t be an ass.’
‘Can’t do it.’
‘Right. Send him a tender message?’
‘Anything. Absolutely.’
‘Good night, darling.’
‘Don’t be sentimental.’
‘You make me ill.’
We kissed good night and Brett shivered. ‘I’d better go,’ she said. ‘Good night, darling.’
‘You don’t have to go.’
‘Yes.’
We kissed again on the stairs and as I called for the cordon the concierge muttered something behind her door. I went back upstairs and from the open window watched Brett walking up the street to the big limousine drawn up to the kerb under the arc-light. She got in and it started off. I turned around. On the table was an empty glass and a glass half-full of brandy and soda.
I took them both out to the kitchen and poured the half-full glass down the sink. I turned off the gas in the dining-room, kicked off my slippers sitting on the bed, and got into bed. This was Brett, that I had felt like crying about. Then I thought of her walking up the street and stepping into the car, as I had last seen her, and of course in a little while I felt like hell again. It is awfully easy to be hard-boiled about everything in the daytime, but at night it is another thing.
CHAPTER V
In the morning I walked down the Boulevard to the Rue Soufflot for coffee and brioche. It was a fine morning. The horse-chestnut trees in the Luxembourg gardens were in bloom. There was the pleasant early-morning feeling of a hot day. I read the papers with the coffee and then smoked a cigarette. The flower-women were coming up from the market and arranging their daily stock. Students went by going up to the law school, or down to the Sorbonne. The Boulevard was busy with trams and people going to work. I got on a S bus and rode down to the Madeleine, standing on the back platform. From the Madeleine I walked along the Boulevard des Capucines to the Opéra, and up to my office.
I passed the man with the jumping frogs and the man with the boxer toys. I stepped aside to avoid walking into the thread with which his girl assistant manipulated the boxers. She was standing looking away, the thread in her folded hands. The man was urging two tourists to buy. Three more tourists had stopped and were watching. I walked on behind a man who was pushing a roller that printed the name CINZANO on the sidewalk in damp letters. All along people were going to work. It felt pleasant to be going to work. I walked across the avenue and turned in to my office.
Upstairs in the office I read the French morning papers, smoked, and then sat at the typewriter and got off a good morning’s work. At eleven o’clock I went over to the Quai d’Orsay in a taxi and went in and sat with about a dozen correspondents, while the foreign-office mouthpiece, a young Nouvelle-Revue-Française diplomat in horn-rimmed spectacles, talked and answered questions for half an hour. The President of the Council was in Lyons making a speech, or, rather he was on his way back. Several people asked questions to hear themselves talk and there were a couple of questions asked by news service men who wanted to know the answers. There was no news. I shared a taxi back from the Quai d’Orsay with Woolsey and Krum.
‘What do you do nights, Jake?’ asked Krum. ‘I never see you around.’
‘Oh, I’m over in the Quarter.’
‘I’m coming over some night. The Dingo. That’s the great place, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. That, or this new dive, The Select.’
‘I’ve meant to get over,’ said Krum. ‘You know how it is, though, with a wife and kids.’
‘Playing any tennis?’ Woolsey asked.
‘Well, no,’ said Krum. ‘I can’t say I’ve played any this year. I’ve tried to get away, but Sundays it’s always rained, and the courts are so damned crowded.’
‘The Englishmen all have Saturday off,’ Woolsey said.
‘Lucky beggars,’ said Krum. ‘Well, I’ll tell you. Some day I’m not going to be working for an agency. Then I’ll have plenty of time to get out in the country.’
‘That’s the thing to do. Live out in the country and have a little car.’
‘I’ve been thinking some about getting a car next year.’
I banged on the glass. The chauffeur stopped. ‘Here’s my street,’ I said. ‘Come in and have a drink.’
‘Thanks, old man,’ Krum said. Woolsey shook his head. ‘I’ve got to file that line he got off this morning.’
I put a two-franc piece in Krum’s hand.
‘You’re crazy, Jake,’ he said. ‘This is on me.’
‘It’s all on the office, anyway.’
‘Nope. I want to get it.’
I waved good-bye. Krum put his head out. ‘See you at the lunch on Wednesday.’
‘You bet.’
I went to the office in the elevator. Robert Cohn was waiting for me. ‘Hello, Jake,’ he said. ‘Going out to lunch?’
‘Yes. Let me see if there is anything new.’
‘Where will we eat?’
‘Anywhere.’
I was looking over my desk. ‘Where do you want to eat?’
‘How about Wetzel’s? They’ve got good hors d’œuvres.’
In the restaurant we ordered hors d’œuvres and beer. The sommelier brought the beer, tall, beaded on the outside of the steins, and cold. There were a dozen different dishes of hors d’œuvres.
‘Have any fun last night?’ I asked.
‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘How’s the writing going?’
‘Rotten. I can’t get this second book going.’
‘That happens to everybody.’
‘Oh, I’m sure of that. It gets me worried, though.’
‘Thought any more about going to South America?’
‘I mean that.’
‘Well, why don’t you start off?’
‘Frances.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘take her with you.’
‘She wouldn’t like it. That isn’t the sort of thing she likes. She likes lot of people around.’
‘Tell her to go to hell.’
‘I can’t. I’ve got certain obligations to her.’
He shoved the sliced cucumbers away and took a pickled herring.
‘What do you know about Lady Brett Ashley, Jake?’
‘Her name’s Lady Ashley. Brett’s her own name. She’s a nice girl,’ I said. ‘She’s getting a divorce and she’s going to marry Mike Campbell. He’s over in Scotland now. Why?’
‘She’s a remarkably attractive woman.’
‘Isn’t she?’
‘There’s a certain quality about her, a certain fineness. She seems to be absolutely fine and straight.’
‘She’s very nice.’
‘I don’t know how to describe the quality,’ Cohn said. ‘I suppose it’s breeding.’
‘You sound as though you liked her pretty well.’
‘I do. I shouldn’t wonder if I were in love with her.’
‘She’s a drunk,’ I said. ‘She’s in love with Mike Campbell, and she’s going to marry him. He’s going to be rich as hell some day.’
‘I don’t believe she’ll ever marry him.’
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t know. I just don’t believe it. Have you known her a long time?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘She was a V.A.D. in a hospital I was in during the war.’
‘She must have been just a kid then.’
‘She’s thirty-four now.’
‘When did she marry Ashley?’
‘During the war. Her own true love had just kicked off with the dysentery.’
‘You talk sort of bitter.’
‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to. I was just trying to give you the facts.’
‘I don’t believe she would marry anybody she didn’t love.’
‘Well,’ I said. ‘She’s done it twice.’
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘don’t ask me a lot of fool questions if you don’t like the answers.’
‘I didn’t ask you that.’
‘You asked me what I knew about Brett Ashley.’
‘I didn’t ask you to insult her.’
‘Oh, go to hell.’
He stood up from the table his face white, and stood there white and angry behind the little plates of hors d’œuvres.
‘Sit down,’ I said. ‘Don’t be a fool.’
‘You’ve got to take that back.’
‘Oh, cut out the prep-school stuff.’
‘Take it back.’
‘Sure. Anything. I never heard of Brett Ashley. How’s that?’
‘No. Not that. About me going to hell.’
‘Oh, don’t go to hell,’ I said. ‘Stick around. We’re just starting lunch.’
Cohn smiled again and sat down. He seemed glad to sit down. What the hell would he have done if he hadn’t sat down? ‘You say such damned insulting things, Jake.’
‘I’m sorry. I’ve got a nasty tongue. I never mean it when I say nasty things.’
‘I know it,’ Cohn said. ‘You’re really about the best friend I have, Jake.’
God help you, I thought. ‘Forget what I said,’ I said out loud. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s all right. It’s fine. I was just sore for a minute.’
‘Good. Let’s get something else to eat.’
After we finished the lunch we walked up to the Café de la Paix and had coffee. I could feel Cohn wanted to bring up Brett again, but I held him off it. We talked about one thing and another, and I left him to come to the office.
CHAPTER VI
At five o’clock I was in the Hotel Crillon waiting for Brett. She was not there, so I sat down and wrote some letters. They were not very good letters but I hoped their being on Crillon stationery would help them. Brett did not turn up, so about quarter to six I went down to the bar and had a Jack Rose with George the barman. Brett had not been in the bar either, and so I looked for her upstairs on my way out, and took a taxi to the Café Select. Crossing the Seine I saw a string of barges being towed empty down the current,
