At those words Fort, who was drawing the last curtain, turned round; his
tall figure was poised awkwardly against the wall, his face, unsuited to
diplomacy, had a look as of flesh being beaten. If weals had started up
across it, Noel would not have been surprised.
He said with painful slowness:
“I don't exactly know; we had hardly begun, had we?”
“The night is young,” said Leila. “Go on while I just take off my
things.”
She rose with the cigarette between her lips, and went into the inner
room. In passing, she gave Noel a look. What there was in that look,
the girl could never make clear even to herself. Perhaps a creature shot
would gaze like that, with a sort of profound and distant questioning,
reproach, and anger, with a sort of pride, and the quiver of death. As
the door closed, Fort came right across the room.
“Go to her;” cried Noel; “she wants you. Can't you see, she
wants you?”
And before he could move, she was at the door. She flew downstairs, and
out into the moonlight. The taxi, a little way off, was just beginning
to move away; she ran towards it, calling out:
“Anywhere! Piccadilly!” and jumping in, blotted herself against the
cushions in the far corner.
She did not come to herself, as it were, for several minutes, and then
feeling she 'could no longer bear the cab, stopped it, and got out.
Where was she? Bond Street! She began, idly, wandering down its narrow
length; the fullest street by day, the emptiest by night. Oh! it had
been horrible! Nothing said by any of them—nothing, and yet everything
dragged out—of him, of Leila, of herself! She seemed to have no pride
or decency left, as if she had been caught stealing. All her happy
exhilaration was gone, leaving a miserable recklessness. Nothing she
did was right, nothing turned out well, so what did it all matter? The
moonlight flooding down between the tall houses gave her a peculiar
heady feeling. “Fey” her father had called her. She laughed. 'But
I'm not going home,' she thought. Bored with the street's length;
she turned off, and was suddenly in Hanover Square. There was the
Church, grey-white, where she had been bridesmaid to a second cousin,
when she was fifteen. She seemed to see it all again—her frock, the
lilies in her hand, the surplices of the choir, the bride's dress, all
moonlight-coloured, and unreal. 'I wonder what's become of her!'
she thought. 'He's dead, I expect, like Cyril!' She saw her
father's face as he was marrying them, heard his voice: “For better,
for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death
do you part.” And the moonlight on the Church seemed to shift and
quiver-some pigeons perhaps had been disturbed up there. Then instead
of that wedding vision, she saw Monsieur Barra, sitting on his
chair, gazing at the floor, and Chica nursing her doll. “All mad,
mademoiselle, a little mad. Millions of men with white souls, but all a
little tiny bit mad, you know.” Then Leila's face came before her,
with that look in her eyes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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