“Rosemary?” Silence while he stared at a shelf that held the humbler poisons of France—bottles of Otard, Rhum St. James, Marie Brizzard, Punch Orangeade, André Fernet Blanco, Cherry Rochet, and Armagnac.
“Are you alone?”
—Do you mind if I pull down the curtain?
“Who do you think I’d be with?”
“That’s the state I’m in. I’d like to be with you now.”
Silence, then a sigh and an answer. “I wish you were with me now.”
There was the hotel room where she lay behind a telephone number, and little gusts of music wailed around her—
“And two—for tea.
And me for you,
And you for me
Alow-own.”
There was the remembered dust of powder over her tan—when he kissed her face it was damp around the corners of her hair; there was the flash of a white face under his own, the arc of a shoulder.
“It’s impossible,” he said to himself. In a minute he was out in the street marching along toward the Muette, or away from it, his small brief-case still in his hand, his gold-headed stick held at a sword-like angle.
Rosemary returned to her desk and finished a letter to her mother.
“—I only saw him for a little while but I thought he was wonderful looking. I fell in love with him (Of course I Do Love Dick Best but you know what I mean). He really is going to direct the picture and is leaving immediately for Hollywood, and I think we ought to leave, too. Collis Clay has been here. I like him all right but have not seen much of him because of the Divers, who really are divine, about the Nicest People I ever Knew. I am feeling not very well to-day and am taking the Medicine, though see No need for it. I’m not even Going to Try to tell you All that’s Happened until I see YOU!!! So when you get this letter WIRE, WIRE, WIRE! Are you coming north or shall I come south with the Divers?”
At six Dick called Nicole.
“Have you any special plans?” he asked. “Would you like to do something quiet—dinner at the hotel and then a play?”
“Would you? I’ll do whatever you want. I phoned Rosemary a while ago and she’s having dinner in her room. I think this upset all of us, don’t you?”
“It didn’t upset me,” he objected. “Darling, unless you’re physically tired let’s do something. Otherwise we’ll get south and spend a week wondering why we didn’t see Boucher. It’s better than brooding—”
This was a blunder and Nicole took him up sharply.
“Brooding about what?”
“About Maria Wallis.”
She agreed to go to a play. It was a tradition between them that they should never be too tired for anything, and they found it made the days better on the whole and put the evenings more in order. When, inevitably, their spirits flagged they shifted the blame to the weariness and fatigue of others. Before they went out, as fine-looking a couple as could be found in Paris, they knocked softly at Rosemary’s door. There was no answer; judging that she was asleep they walked into a warm strident Paris night, snatching a vermouth and bitters in the shadow by Fouquet’s bar.
XXII
Nicole awoke late, murmuring something back into her dream before she parted her long lashes tangled with sleep. Dick’s bed was empty—only after a minute did she realize that she had been awakened by a knock at their salon door.
“Entrez!” she called, but there was no answer, and after a moment she slipped on a dressing-gown and went to open it. A sergent-de- ville confronted her courteously and stepped inside the door.
“Mr. Afghan North—he is here?”
“What? No—he’s gone to America.”
“When did he leave, Madame?”
“Yesterday morning.”
He shook his head and waved his forefinger at her in a quicker rhythm.
“He was in Paris last night. He is registered here but his room is not occupied. They told me I had better ask at this room.”
“Sounds very peculiar to me—we saw him off yesterday morning on the boat train.”
“Be that as it may, he has been seen here this morning. Even his carte d’identité has been seen. And there you are.”
“We know nothing about it,” she proclaimed in amazement.
He considered. He was an ill-smelling, handsome man.
“You were not with him at all last night?”
“But no.”
“We have arrested a Negro. We are convinced we have at last arrested the correct Negro.”
“I assure you that I haven’t an idea what you’re talking about. If it’s the Mr. Abraham North, the one we know, well, if he was in Paris last night we weren’t aware of it.”
The man nodded, sucked his upper lip, convinced but disappointed.
“What happened?” Nicole demanded.
He showed his palms, puffing out his closed mouth. He had begun to find her attractive and his eyes flickered at her.
“What do you wish, Madame? A summer affair. Mr. Afghan North was robbed and he made a complaint. We have arrested the miscreant. Mr. Afghan should come to identify him and make the proper charges.”
Nicole pulled her dressing-gown closer around her and dismissed him briskly. Mystified she took a bath and dressed. By this time it was after ten and she called Rosemary but got no answer—then she phoned the hotel office and found that Abe had indeed registered, at six-thirty this morning. His room, however, was still unoccupied. Hoping for a word from Dick she waited in the parlor of the suite; just as she had given up and decided to go out, the office called and announced: