Linda Lee, Incorporated: A Novel. Vance Louis Joseph

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      "Sorry – "

      "That's all very well: but suppose you hadn't had sense enough to call up this morning, suppose I had come here to meet you, just as we'd arranged, and had to go home after waiting around for hours like some shop-girl forgotten on a street corner – "

      "Poetic justice, if you ask me – something to offset some of the hours you've kept me fidgeting, wondering if you meant to show up at all."

      Injudiciously, Bellamy added a smile to the retort, by way of offsetting its justice.

      "So it amuses you to think of making an exhibition of me in a place like this!"

      "Oh, I don't know." Bellamy surveyed the restaurant without bias. "Not a bad little hole for people in our position."

      The melon, inedible and uneaten, was removed, soup in cups was substituted.

      "'People in our position'! I'm to understand, then, any 'little hole' is good enough for me, so long as I don't interfere with Lucinda's parties at the Ritz."

      Bellamy straightened his spine and put down his spoon. An understanding captain of waiters read his troubled eye and made casual occasion to draw the curtains across the front of the booth.

      "It is because Lucinda's lunching at the Ritz today, isn't it?"

      "My dear Amy," said Bellamy coolly: "I'm unaware of having done anything to provoke this, and if I've sinned unwittingly, I beg your pardon very truly. Won't you believe that, please, and let me off for today? I'm feeling rather rusty myself, my dear, and this is beginning to get on my nerves."

      At his first words the woman drew back, flushing, eyes stormy above a mouth whose gentle allure lost itself in a hardening line. Then swiftly reconsideration followed, visibly the selfish second thought took shape in the angry eyes and melted their ice to a mist of unshed tears beneath lids newly languorous. The petulant lips, too, refound their tremulous tenderness. Amelie's hand fell upon Bellamy's in a warm, convulsive clasp. She leaned across the corner of the table.

      "Kiss me, Bel – I'm so wretched!"

      He kissed her adequately but without any sort of emotion, thinking it strange, all the while her mouth clung to his, that he should so clearly know this to be good acting, no more than that, no less. Bellamy was not accustomed to see through women at so young a stage of intimacy; that came later, came surely; but never before had it come so soon. And in a little quake of dread he wondered if it were because he had grown old beyond his years, too aged in sentimental tippling to have retained the capacity for generous credulity of his younger years. Or was it that the woman's insincerity had so eaten out her heart, no technical perfection could lend persuasion to her playing, her caresses potency? Or that he had, since morning, fallen in love with his wife all over again and so truly that no rival passion could seem real?

      It was true, at least, that his thoughts were quick and warm with memories of Linda even while he was most engaged with the effort to do justice to Amelie's lips. And perceiving this to be so, self-contempt took hold of him like a sickness.

      They resumed their poses of nonchalant and sophisticated creatures amiably discussing an informal meal. But first the woman made effective use of a handkerchief.

      "Forgive me, dear," she murmured. "I know it was perfectly rotten of me, but I couldn't help it. I'm a bit overwrought, Bel, not too happy; being in love with you has made the way things are at home doubly hard to endure, you must know that; and then – of course" – she smiled nervously – "I'm jealous."

      He was silent, fiddling with a fork, avoiding her eye.

      "Of Lucinda – you understand."

      He said heavily: "Yes…"

      She waited an instant, and when he failed to say more began to see that she had overplayed her hand.

      "You do love me, don't you, Bel?"

      "Of course."

      "Then you must know how hard it is for me, you can't blame me for growing impatient."

      This time he looked up and met her gaze. "Impatient for what?"

      "Why, for what every woman expects when she's in love and the man whom she loves loves her; something definite to look forward to, I mean. We can't go on like this, of course."

      "No, not like this."

      "I'm not the kind of a woman for a hole-and-corner affair, Bel. If I were, you wouldn't be in love with me."

      He nodded intently: "What do you propose?"

      "I've been waiting for that to come from you, dear; but you never seem to live for anything but the moment."

      "I've got to know what's in your mind, Amy. Tell me frankly."

      "Well, then!" – she saw the mistake of it instantly, but for the life of her couldn't muffle the ring of challenge – "I fancy it means Reno for both of us."

      "Meaning I'm to divorce Linda and marry you?"

      She gave a deprecating flutter of hands. "What else can we do?"

      Bellamy said with a stubborn shake of his head: "Never without good cause; and as far as I know, Linda's blameless. I'm a pretty hopeless proposition, I know, but not quite so bad as all that."

      Amelie sat back, her colour rising. She could not misinterpret the determination in his temper; yet vanity would not permit her to forego one last attempt. "But if she should divorce you?"

      "Deal with that when it comes up. Frankly, don't believe it ever will. Don't mean to give Linda any reason I can avoid."

      "What you mean is, you really love – !"

      "I mean," he cut in sharply, "whatever my shortcomings, I respect Linda, I won't hurt her if I can help it."

      "How charming of you!"

      For all acknowledgment she received a silent inclination of his head; and she began to laugh dangerously, eyes abrim with hatred, the heat in her cheeks shaming their rouge.

      "Well, thank God I've come to understand you before we went any farther!"

      "Amen to that."

      "And so all your love-making has been simply – "

      "The same as yours, Amy."

      "Then why did you ever make love to me at all, please?"

      "Because you let me see you wanted me to."

      The brutal truth of that lifted the woman to her feet. "I don't think I care for any more luncheon," she said in a shaking voice. "If you don't mind…"

      Bellamy rose, bowing from his place: "Not at all."

      He offered to help her with her fur, but she wouldn't have that, threw the garment over her arm and flung round the table, then checked and looked back. "You understand – this ends it – for all time?"

      "I couldn't do you the injustice of thinking anything else."

      She made a tempestuous exit through the curtains. Bellamy grunted in self-disgust, lighted a cigarette, and looked up to see the suavely concerned countenance СКАЧАТЬ