felix came quietly through the communicating door into lilian's shuttered and close room. between the two bedrooms was a bathroom. all the bedrooms in the hotel seemed to be designed on the same plan--too high, too long, too narrow, with the head of the bed behind the door and directly facing the window; a wardrobe, a dressing-table, a washstand, a writing-table, an easy chair (under the window), two cane chairs, a night-table, and two electric lights so devilishly arranged that they could not be persuaded to burn simultaneously; a carpet overgrown with huge, gorgeous flowers, and the walls overgrown with huge, gorgeous flowers of another but equally mirific plant. outside the bedroom a bell rang at short intervals--all the guests in the neighbourhood performed, according to their idiosyncrasies, on the same bell--and slippered feet of servants rushing to and fro in the corridor shook the planks of lilian's floor as they passed.
amid the obscurity of the room lilian's curved form, lying heaped on its side, and rather like a miniature mountain that sloped softly down towards the head and towards the feet, could be vaguely deciphered in the bed; and hillocks of attire, some pale, others coloured, some fragile and diaphanous, others resistant to the world's peering, lay dimly about on chairs and even on the writing-table. the air, exhausted by the night, had a faint and delicate odour that excited, but did not offend, felix's nostrils.
"is it time to get up?" lilian murmured in the voice of a sleepy child.
"no."
her brain slowly came to life. flitting in and out of her happiness there were transient apprehensions--not about the morality, but about the security, of her situation. they disappeared, all except one, as soon as she looked firmly at them, because she had the most perfect confidence in felix's good faith. the unity of the pair had begun in london, under conditions provided by felix, who, however, did not care for them, and who had decided that he would take her away for a holiday in order that they might both reflect upon and discuss at length the best method of organizing a definite secret existence.
it was during the preliminaries to the departure that she had been specially struck by his straightforwardness. he would have no wangling with passports. she must travel as herself. she could think of no acquaintance qualified to sign the application for her passport. it was felix's suggestion that she should go to the putney doctor who had attended her father and mother. the pair had travelled separately on the same train de luxe, for which, with felix's money, she bought her own ticket. the cost of the ticket and the general expensiveness of the purchases which felix insisted on her making had somewhat frightened her. he reassured her by preaching the relativity of all things. "you must alter your scale--it needs only an effort of the imagination," he had said; and explained to her his financial status. she learned that he had an independent income, and his sister another though much smaller independent income, and that the typewriting business was a diversion, though a remunerative one; also that an important cash bonus just received from an insurance policy enabled him to be profuse without straining his ordinary resources.
she had trembled at the reception office of the great hotel, but felix, laughing at her fears, accomplished all formalities for her quite openly, and indeed the discreet incuriosity of the hotel officials fully confirmed the soundness of his attitude. ignoring the description on the passport, he had told her to sign as "madame," and he threw out negligently that she was his cousin. this was his sole guile. before going upstairs he had written out a telegram and shown it to her. it was to his sister, to say that he had arrived safely and sent his love. "she has to be deceived," he murmured, "but she's got to be treated decently. it was all i could do to keep her from coming to see me off at victoria!" he smiled. lilian was impressed. when lilian found that felix's bedroom stood next to her bathroom her anxieties were renewed. felix laughed again, and rang, for the door between the bathroom and his bedroom was locked. in a few minutes a dark and stoutish chambermaid entered with a pleasant, indulgent, comprehending gravity, and unlocked the door. "what is your name?" he asked. "jacqueline, monsieur," she replied, and cordially accepted a twenty-franc note from him. it was all so simple, so natural, so un-english, so enheartening. in two hours they had settled down. all the embarrassing preludes to the closest intimacy had been amply achieved in london.
lilian stretched herself voluptuously, murmured with a magnificent yawn, "ah! how i have slept!" and, slipping out of bed, padded unshod up the room to felix, who sat passive in the easy chair. she took the bearings of his shape in the gloom, and dropped lightly on to his knees.
"what am i sitting on?" she exclaimed, startled.
"my newspapers."
touched by the fact that he had been waiting to read his beloved papers until she should be ready to rise, she threw her arms passionately round his neck and crushed her face into his. daily it became clearer to her that he adored her; and yet she could scarcely believe it, because she felt so young--even childish--and so crude and insipid. she determined with a whole-souled resolve that renewed itself every hour to stop at nothing to please him.
"do i make you happy?" she whispered almost inarticulately, her lips being buried in his cheek.
"you do."
after a moment she sprang up, seized her thin, loose, buttonless dressing-gown, and having somehow got into it, opened the window and violently pushed back the shutters. strong sunlight rushed blazing into the room like an army into a city long besieged and at last fallen. millions of buoyant motes were revealed, and all the minutest details of the chamber. lilian looked out. there were the shady gardens of the hotel, the white promenade with strolling visitors in pale costumes, the calm ultramarine mediterranean, the bandstand far to the right emitting inaudible music, the yellow casino, beyond the casino the jetty with its group of white yachts, and, distant on either side, noble and jagged mountains, some of them snow-capped. incredible! she heard felix moving within the room, and turned her head.
"darling, what are you doing?"
"ringing for your coffee."
"what time is it?"
"haven't the least."
"but your watch?"
"haven't got it on."
"but you're all dressed."
"haven't put my things in my pockets."
she clasped his arm and led him silently through the bathroom into his own bedroom, and up to the night-table, the drawer of which she pulled open. all his "things" were arranged carefully therein.
"oh! men are funny!" she laughed.
the number and the variety of the articles they carried in their innumerable pockets!
"i will put your things in your pockets," she said, and began to do so.
"wrong!" he would protest from time to time; but he would give no positive direction, and she had to discover the proper pocket by experiment. it was a most wonderful operation, and it deliciously illustrated the exotic, incomprehensible, exquisite curiousness of men. she was proud of having thought of it, and proud of the pleasure in his face. as she glanced at the watch her brow puckered.
"i shall be frightfully late!"
"it is impossible to be late where time does not exist."
"is that jacqueline with my coffee?" she said, listening, and ran back to her room, pulling him after her.
yes, she admitted she was a perfect child, but she could not help it. while she drank the coffee he put on his eyeglasses and opened the newspapers, one english, one french. she went into the bathroom.
"felix! felix!" she called presently from the bathroom. "bring me in that soft towel i've left on the chair by the writing-table."
then she returned to the bedroom and did her abundant glossy chestnut hair, and by innumerable small stages dressed. he was reading his papers, but she knew that he was also watching her, and she loved him to watch her dress, from the first stage to the last. she was too young to have anything to conceal, and his pleasure, which he tried to mask, was so obvious. he dropped the times and turned to the french paper.
"felix, do you know what?"
"what?"
"i'm frightfully ashamed of not being able to speak french. if i could only speak it a quarter as well as you do."
"that's nothing. i couldn't say two words without a frenchman knowing instantly that i wasn't french."
"but you can talk it so quickly. couldn't i have someone in here every morning to teach me for an hour? people do. i could get up earlier."
"certainly not," felix replied. "if you did you'd have something to be late for. you'd bring time into existence and spoil everything. besides, learning french is hard work. you wouldn't learn it by instinct, as you learn clothes. and you aren't here for hard work. learn french by all means, but not in this place. london's the place for hard work. exercise your sense of the fitness of things, my clever girl."
she did not fully understand this philosophy, but she accepted it admiringly.
"what dress would you like me to wear, darling?" she was at the wardrobe.
"that white one."
"then i shall have to change my stockings."
"well, the yellow one, then. it doesn't matter."
"of course it matters," she said with earnestness, sitting down religiously, fanatically, to change her stockings. "don't you know that i don't want anything in the world except to please you? i only wanted to learn french so you shouldn't have to be ashamed of me."
