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"Oh! you can?"
"Don't be alarmed: you're not wearing your heart on your sleeve. I can see you're troubled about something, simply because I know you so much better than anybody else. Oh, yes, I do. You never knew how thoroughly I studied you in the dear, dead days of yore. I'll lay long odds no one else has noticed anything, but to my seeing eye you've been flying signals of distress all during luncheon. That being so, it wouldn't be decent of me not to give you a hail and stand by in case I'm needed – now would it?"
Momentarily Lucinda contended against temptation. Then, "You are a dear, Dobbin," she said almost regretfully. "But it isn't fair of you to see too much. If it's true I have secrets I don't want to share, it would be kinder to let me keep them – don't you think?"
"Lord bless you, yes! But it's my observation the human being in trouble has got to talk to somebody, and will to the wrong body if the right isn't handy. Not only that, but you'll find most people will listen to your troubles only to get a chance to tell you their own; whereas I have none except the one you know all about. So you needn't fear reprisals."
She pondered this, sweetly serious, then in little better than a whisper said: "At least, not now…"
Jean Sedley was claiming her attention. "What do you think of that, Cindy? Isn't it a ripping idea?"
"Afraid I didn't hear – I was flirting with Dobbin."
"Yes, I know. But Mr. Lontaine has just made a priceless suggestion about the pageant. He says we can have moving-pictures taken as we enter the ball-room and shown before the evening is over."
"But is that possible?"
"Oh, quite," Lontaine insisted – "assure you. It's really extraordinary how they do these things, three or four hours is all they require to develop and prepare a film for projection. Say your pageant starts at ten: by one you can see yourself on the screen."
"Everybody would adore it!" Nelly Guest declared with deep conviction.
"And you could arrange it, Mr. Lontaine?"
"Easily, Mrs. Druce – that is to say, if I'm still in New York."
"What do you think, Cindy?" Jean urged. "Almost everybody is moving-picture mad. We could sell twice as many tickets on the strength of such a novelty. And it is a charity affair, you know."
"Meaning to say," Dobbin put in, "you're rather keen about it yourself."
"Of course – crazy to see myself as others see me. So is every woman – Fanny, Jean, Cindy – "
"I don't know," Lucinda demurred. "It must be a weird sensation."
"Not one you need be afraid of," Lontaine promised. "If you don't mind my saying so, you would screen wonderfully, Mrs. Druce."
"You think so, really?"
"Oh, no doubt about it, whatever. You're just the type the camera treats most kindly. If you wanted to, you could make a fortune in the cinema. No, seriously: I'm not joking."
"I'm glad of that," Lucinda returned soberly. "It wouldn't be at all nice of you to trifle with my young affections. Still, I will admit I'm skeptical."
"Tell you what," Lontaine offered eagerly: "Suppose you take test, what? No trouble at all to fix it up for you – chaps I know – only too glad – anything I say. I'd like to prove I know what I'm talking about. Take us all, for that matter, just as we are. What do you say?"
"I say it's perfectly damn' splendid!" Jean Sedley declared. "We'd all love it. When can you arrange it?"
"Any time you like – this afternoon, if that suits everybody. Only have to telephone, and in half an hour they'll be all ready for us. Shall I?" Lontaine got out of his chair. "Do say yes, all of you. Mrs. Druce? I know the others will if you do?"
"I don't mind…"
"Right-O! Give me five minutes…"
VII
Lontaine brought back a gratified countenance from the telephone booths. As he had promised, so had he performed. This cinema chap he knew, Culp, had professed himself only too delighted. Rum name, what? A rum customer, if you asked Lontaine, diamond in the rough and all that sort of thing, one of the biggest guns in the American cinema to boot.
Dobbin wanted to know if Mr. Culp wasn't the husband of Alma Daley, the motion-picture actress. Lontaine said he was. Extraordinary pair. Married a few years ago when they were both stoney, absolutely. Now look at them; Culp a millionaire and better, Miss Daley one of the most popular stars. You might say he'd made her and she'd made him. Showed the value of team-work in marriage, what? You pulled together, and nothing could stop you. You pulled in opposite directions, and what happened? You stood still! What?
(Lucinda remarked the patient smile with which Fanny listened. But repetition is, after all, a notorious idiosyncrasy of the married male.)
Charming little woman, Miss Daley. As it happened, she was working in a picture at the studio now. Rare luck; they'd get a look in at practical producing methods in addition to getting shot for their tests. Not bad, what?
Somebody echoed "shot" with a puzzled inflection. But that term, it appeared, was studio slang; one was shot when one was photographed by a motion-picture camera. No doubt because they first aimed the camera at one, then turned the crank – like a machine-gun, Lontaine meant to say.
Lucinda discovered that it was already three o'clock, and wondered how long they would need to get properly shot. Lontaine protested it would take no time at all. Astonishing chaps, these American cinema people, absolutely full of push and bounce, did everything in jig-time, if you knew what he meant.
With two cars at its disposal, the party split up into threes, Mrs. Sedley, Mrs. Guest, and Lontaine leading the way. On the point of entering her own car after Fanny, however, Lucinda recalled her promise to look in at the bridge-tea for the Italian Milk Fund, and bidding Dobbin keep Fanny amused while they waited for her, turned back into the hotel to telephone Mrs. Wade that she would be a little late.
Having seen no more of Bellamy since their encounter near the cloak-room, she had assumed that he had taken her at her word, and had dismissed from her calculations the possibility of his returning. The surprise was so much the more unwelcome, consequently, when on leaving the telephone booth she saw her husband with his hat on the back of his head and his arms full of lavender orchids, wavering irresolutely in the entrance to the Palm Room, surveying with a dashed expression its now all but deserted spaces; a festive spectacle that left no room for surmise as to what he had been up to. And with sickening contempt added to the bitterness already rankling in her heart, Lucinda made hastily for the revolving door.
Simultaneously Bel caught sight of her and, with a blurred travesty of his really charming smile, and a faltering parody of that air of gallant alacrity which she had once thought so engaging, moved to intercept Lucinda. And finding her escape cut off, she paused and awaited him with a stony countenance.
"Ah! there you are, eh, Linda! 'Fraid I'd missed you. Sorry couldn't get back sooner, but – "
"I'm not," Lucinda interrupted.
"Had to go over to Thorley's to find these orchids…" Bel extended his burden as if to transfer it to Lucinda's arms and, when she prevented this by falling back a pace, looked both pained and puzzled. "Ah – what say? What's matter?"
"I said," Lucinda replied icily, "I'm not sorry you couldn't get here sooner. Surely you can't imagine I'd care to have my friends see you as you are, in the middle of the afternoon. It's bad enough to have them know you get in this condition nearly every night."
"But – look here, Linda: be reasonable – "
"I think I have been – what you call reasonable – long enough – too long!"
Bellamy hesitated, nervously moistening his lips, glancing sidelong this way and that. But there was nobody in the foyer at the moment but themselves; even the coatroom girls had retired to their office and were well out of ear-shot of the quiet conversational key which, for all her indignation, Lucinda had adopted. For all of which the man should have been abjectly grateful. Instead of which (such is the wicked way of drink) Bellamy took heart of these circumstances, their temporary isolation and Lucinda's calculated quietness, and offered to bluster it out.
"Here – take these flowers, won't you? Plenty for you and all your friends. Tha's what kept me so long – had to go all over to find enough."
Again Lucinda defeated his attempt to disburden himself. "Oh, Bel!" she cried sadly – "how can you be such a fool?"
"How'm I a fool? Like flowers, don't you? Thought I was going to please you… And this is what I get!"
"You know all the orchids in New York couldn't make up for your drinking."
"Why cut up so nasty about a little drink or two? Way you talk, anyone'd think I was reeling."
"You will be before night, if you keep this up."
"Well, I'm not going to keep it up. I've made arrangements to have the afternoon free, just to be with you. We'll go somewhere – do something – "
"Thank you: I'd rather not."
"Don't talk rot." Most unwisely, Bellamy essayed the masterful method. "Of course we'll go some place – "
"We will not," Lucinda told him inflexibly. "My afternoon is booked full up already, and – "
"Where you going? I don't mind tagging along – "
"Sorry, but I don't want you."
Injudiciously again, Bellamy elected to show his teeth, stepped closer to Lucinda and with ugly deliberation demanded: "See here: where you going? I've got a right to know – "
"Have you, Bel? Think again. I never ask you such questions. If I did, you'd either lose your temper or lie to me, and justify yourself by asserting that no man ought to be asked to stand prying into his affairs. So – I leave you to your affairs – and only ask that you leave me to mine."
"Meaning you won't tell me where you're going?"
Lucinda shrugged and turned away; but Bellamy swung in between her and the exit.
"See here, Linda! there are limits to my patience."
"And to mine – and you have found them. Let me go."
She didn't move, but her face had lost colour, her eyes had grown dangerous. Neither spoke in that clash of wills until Bellamy's weakened, his eyes shifted, and he stepped aside, slightly sobered.
"Please!" he begged in a turn of penitence. "Didn't mean… Frightfully sorry if I've been an ass; but – you know – pretty well shot to pieces last night – had to pull myself together somehow to talk business at luncheon – "
"Oh! it was a business luncheon, then?" asked Lucinda sweetly, pausing.
"Of course."
With an ominous smile she commented: "It has come to that already, has it?"
"Ah – what d'you mean?"
"Since you tell me it was a business luncheon, you leave me to infer that your affair with Amelie has reached the point where you take her to the Clique Club to talk terms." Bellamy's jaw sagged, his eyes were dashed with consternation. "What else do you wish me to think, Bellamy?"
He made a pitiable effort to pull himself together. "Look here, Linda: you're all wrong about this – misinformed. I can explain – "
"You forget I know all your explanations, Bel; I've heard them all too often!"
"But – but you must give me a chance! Damn it, you can't refuse – !"
"Can't I? Go home, Bel, get some sleep. When you wake up, if you still think you have anything to say – consider it carefully before you ask me to listen. Remember what I tell you now: you've lied to me for the last time, one more lie will end everything between us, finally and for all time!"
Conscious though she was that her wrath was righteous, she experienced an instant of irresolution, of yielding and pity excited by the almost dog-like appeal in his eyes. But immediately she remembered Amelie, hardened her heart and, leaving him agape, pushed through the door to the street.
And instantly she effected one of those shifts of which few but the sensitive know the secret, who must hide their hurts from alien eyes though they spend all their strength in the effort; instantly she sloughed every sign of her anger and with smiling face went to rejoin Fanny and Dobbin.
As soon as she appeared the latter jumped out of the car and offered his hand. He said something in a jocular vein, and Lucinda must have replied to the point, for she heard him chuckle; but she could not, a minute later, recollect one word of what had passed between them.
With her hand resting on Dobbin's she glanced back and saw Bellamy – still with his armful of orchids – emerge from the hotel. He halted, his face darkening as he watched Daubeney follow Lucinda into the car. It drew away quickly, giving him no chance to see for himself that it held another passenger.
He stood still upon the steps, deep in sombre and chagrined reflection, till a touch on his arm and a civil "Pardon!" roused him to the fact that he was obstructing the fairway. As he moved aside he was hailed by name.
"Well, I'm damned! Bellamy Druce drunk, dressed up, and highly perfumed."
In his turn, he recognized the speaker, a personage of the theatrical world with modest social aspirations and a noble cellar.
"Why, hello, Whittington!" said Bellamy, smiling in spite of his disgruntlement, to see that carved mask of a wise clown upturned to his. "All by yourself? What's happened to the girl crop you should be so lonesome?"
Without direct reply, Mr. Freddie Whittington linked his arm and began to walk toward Fifth avenue.
"Just the man I'm looking for," he declared without a smile. "Come along. Got a thousand women I want you to meet 'safternoon. They'll take care of your orchids."
"Well," Bellamy conceded, "that sounds reasonable. But what do you say, we drop in at the Club? Got something there won't do us any good – in my locker."
VIII
On the far West Side, well beyond the drab iron articulation of the Ninth Avenue Elevated, in a region of New York whose every aspect was foreign to Lucinda's eyes, the brougham drew to a shuddering stop, in thoroughbred aversion to such surroundings, before a row of blank-avised brick buildings whose façades of varying heights and widths showed them to have been originally designed for diverse uses. That they were today, however, united in one service was proved by the legend that linked them together, letters of black on a broad white band running from end to end of the row beneath its second-story windows:
ALMA DALEY STUDIOS – CULP CINEMAS INC. – BEN CULP, PRES'T
Across the way unsightly tenements grinned like a company of draggletail crones who had heard a rare lot about the goings-on of picture actors and, through this happy accident of propinquity, were in a position to tell the world it didn't know the half of it. Children liberally embellished with local colour swarmed on sidewalks where ash and garbage-cans flourished in subtropical luxuriance, and disputed the roadway with the ramshackle wagons and push-carts of peddlers, horse-drawn drays, and grinding, gargantuan motor-trucks that snarled ferociously at the aliens, the frail, pretty pleasure cars from Fifth avenue. Apparently an abattoir was languishing nearby, discouraged in its yearning to lose consciousness of self in the world's oblivion. At the end of the street the Hudson ran, a glimpse of incredible blue furrowed by snowy wakes.
Such the nursery in which what Mr. Culp (or his press agent) had brilliantly imaged as the youngest, fairest sister of the plastic arts was fostering the finest flower of its expression, to wit, the artistry of Alma Daley…
"Like a lily springing from the mire," Fanny Lontaine murmured.
Lucinda laughed and gave Fanny's arm a mock-pinch, grateful for any gleam of wit to lighten life's dull firmament. The temper in which she had left Bel at the Ritz had been quick to cool; and though its cooling had not affected her determination to brook no longer his misconduct, she was beginning to experience premonitions of that débâcle whose event was certain if this breach, so lately opened, were to widen.
If it should come to a break asunder, what would become of her? of the home she loved so well? and what of Bel, whom she loved best of all?
In the eyes of Dobbin, as he waited for her at the main entrance to the building, she read too shrewd a question; and understanding that she had for a moment let fall her mask, she hastily resumed that show of debonair amusement which was her heart's sole shield against the tearing beaks and talons of envy, malice and all manner of uncharitableness.
Fortunately there was something to jog her sense of humour in the utter absence of preparations to receive them, such as Lontaine had confidently promised.
A sense of hostility made itself felt even in the bare antechamber, a vestibule with makeshift walls of match-boarding, and for all features a wooden bench, a card-board sign, NO CASTING TODAY, a door of woven iron wire at the mouth of a forbidding tunnel, and a window which framed the head of a man with gimlet eyes, a permanent scowl, and a cauliflower ear.
Interviewed by Lontaine, this one grunted skeptically but consented to pass on the name and message to some person unseen, then resumed his louring and distrustful watch, while beyond the partition the professional sing-song of a telephone operator made itself heard: "Lis'n, sweetheart. Mista Fountain's here with a party, says he's got 'nappointmunt with Mista Culp… Wha' say?.. Oh, a'right, dearie. Say, Sam: tell that party Mista Culp's into a conf'rince, but they kin go up to the stage if they wanta an' stick around till he's dis'ngaged."
With every symptom of disgust the faithful watchdog pressed a button on the window ledge, a latch clicked, the wire door swung back, the party filed through and in twilight stumbled up two flights of creaking steps to a tiny landing upon which a number of doors stood all closed, and each sternly stencilled: PRIVATE.
After a moment of doubt during which even Lontaine began to show signs of failing patience, one of the doors opened hastily and ejected a well-groomed, nervously ingratiating young man, who introduced himself as Mr. Lane, secretary to Mr. Culp, and said he had been delegated to do the honours. A public-spirited soul, he shook each visitor warmly by the hand, protested that he was genuinely pleased to meet them all, then threw wide another of the PRIVATE doors.
"This is the main stage, ladies. Miss Daley is working on one of the sets now, making the final scenes for her latest picture, 'The Girl in the Dark'; so if you'll be kind enough not to talk out loud while she's before the camera… Miss Daley is very, er, temperamental, y'understand…"
Reverently the barbarians obeyed a persuasive wave of Mr. Lane's hand and tiptoed into the studio, to huddle in a considerately awe-stricken group on one side of an immense loft with a high roof of glass.
Stage, as the layman understands that term, there was none; but the floor space as a whole was rather elaborately cluttered with what Lucinda was to learn were technically known as "sets," in various stages of completion and demolition; a set being anything set up to be photographed, from a single "side" or "flat" with a simple window or door, or an "angle" formed of two such sides joined to show the corner of a room, up to the solid and pretentious piece of construction which occupied fully one-half of the loft and reproduced the Palm Room at the Ritz-Carlton, not without discrepancies to be noted by the captious, but by no means without fair illusion.
