lilian, in a negligé, was somnolently stretched out in the easy chair in her room when felix peeped in. he looked at her enquiringly in silence for a moment, and she gave him a hazy smile.
"oh!" he said. "then you won't feel like going into the casino to-night after all?"
"nothing to stop me," she replied, with a peculiar intonation, light and yet anxious.
"hurrah!" exclaimed felix very gaily, almost boyishly. "then we'll go."
the apprehension which now for two days had been eating like a furtive cancer into her mind suddenly grew and contaminated the whole of her consciousness; she could not understand his levity, for she had not concealed from him the sinister misgiving.
"yes!" she murmured with a sort of charming and victimized protest. "that's all very well, but----" and she stopped, and the smile expired from her face.
he shrugged his shoulders, gave a short, affectionate, humouring laugh, and said with kind superiority, utterly positive:
"what have i told you? the thing's absolutely imposs!"
and just as suddenly she was quite reassured and the apprehension vanished away. it could not exist against his perfect certitude. she lit up a new smile.
"look here," he went on, "we'll dine in the casino if we can. of course, every blessed table may be booked, but i'll have a try."
a quarter of an hour later, when she had begun to dress, he returned with the exciting information that, at precisely the right instant, somebody had telephoned to countermand an inside table and he had secured it.
they arrived very late in the casino restaurant, yet more diners came after them than had come before, so that ultimately it would have been difficult to draw a straight line between dinner and supper. the stars in the arched firmament of the vast and lofty hall challenged the stars of heaven in number and splendour, and seemed to win easily. light fell in glittering floods on the flowered tables and on the shoulders of the women. in the centre of the floor was an oblong parquet sacred to dancing. the band, in which englishmen and varied dagoes were mingled, sat, clothed apparently in surplices, on a daïs in a mighty alcove. the drummer and the banjoist each procured an unnatural union of light and sound by electric illumination of their instruments from within. the leader wore a battered opera hat, and at the end of a piece he would exclaim grimly and scornfully, "so that's that!" or, "we are the goods!" or some such phrase. now and then the band overflowed into song, and the wild chants of the marquesas or the fiji islands rang riotously through the correctness of the restaurant, and lilian caught fragments of significant verse, such as:
"the rich get rich,
and the poor get children,
ain't we got fun?"
showing that one touch of nature makes the southern archipelago the very sister and bride of europe.
the primary mission of the band was to induce a general exultant gaiety; and the mission was accomplished, nobody understood how. lilian exulted in the food, the wine, the glitter, the noise, the wise, humorous face of felix, and the glances which assailed her on every hand. all care fell away from her. she forgot the future, and the whole of her vitality concentrated itself intensely in the moment. most of the conversation at neighbouring tables was in english, and it was all about gambling, dancing, golf, lawn-tennis, polo, cards, racing, trains de luxe, clothes, hotels, prices, and women. even in the incomprehensible french gabble that reached her she could distinguish words like "golf," and "bridge," and "picnic."
then four elegant, waisted young men appeared mysteriously from nowhere and approached certain tables and bowed with an assured air, and instantly four elegant young women rose up, without being asked, and the professional couples began to display to the amateurs the true art of the dance. lilian had never seen such dancing.
"why are they all spanish girls?" she innocently asked, struck by the rich, dark skin of the women.
"they're no more spanish than you are," said felix. "you perceive that one there. she's at our hotel, on our floor, and i've seen her as blonde as a norwegian. the dark olive is the result of strange cosmetics, and a jolly fine result, too. nothing finer has been invented for a century. it's so perverse. don't you like it?"
"i think it's lovely!" she agreed with enthusiasm, also with a vague envy.
later, when the senoritas had left their partners and resumed their interrupted meals, and the parquet was empty again, she said:
"i do really think it's awful, all this! it's so expensive, everything; and it's all for pleasure. the whole town's for pleasure." in the background she had a vision of her working life, with its discipline and cast-iron hours and wristlets and fatigue and privations and penury. the click of the typewriter, the green-shaded lamps, the tube, the cold bedroom, the washing and sewing done in the cold bedroom! the blue working frock with its pathetic red line of clumsy embroidery!
"what about margate?" felix demanded quietly.
she was nonplussed.
"oh! but that's different!"
"it is. it's not half as good. you must remember there's nothing new in all this. it's been going on in the mediterranean for thousands of years, and it's likely to go on for thousands of years more. it's what human nature is. what are you going to do about it? would you abolish luxury and pleasure? not you. do you imagine that god created the shores of the mediterranean and this climate for anything else but this? what frightens you is the tremendous organization and concentration of the affair. nothing else. and let me tell you that this town is the most interesting town on the coast just now. the fellow that's got the new concession for the casino is a bit of a genius. he's moulding the place into something fresh. it used to be the primmest place on earth. he discovered that the english don't want to be prim any more; he showed them to themselves. do you suppose all these women began to come here on their own? they're pawns in his great game. he brought them; but no nice-minded person asks how, nor whether they really pay for their meals or their rooms, nor how they manage to encourage big gambling in the baccarat rooms. this fellow has put the wind up to the next town up the coast: it used to be the most corrupt town in the whole of europe, that place used to be! and now the rival genius there is introducing large families of children and nurses there in the hope of persuading the english that they prefer to be prim and domestic after all. the fact is these two geniuses are gambling against one another for far bigger stakes than any of the baccarat maniacs. it's a battle for the command of the coast. that's what it is. you don't get the hang of it all at once; but you will in time. let's dance."
lilian was startled by the invitation, for they had not yet danced together. she remembered how, on that night when he first talked to her about herself, he had known that she was being deprived of an evening's dancing. they stood up as the chicken was being removed. she smiled at him with fresh admiration. he had impregnated her with new ideas; he had reassured her; he had justified her enjoyment; he was amazing; he was mad about her, in his restrained style; and now he would surprisingly dance with her.
although they took the floor early in the dance, when only two other couples had begun to dance, it was impossible for her to be nervous within his arm. half the room gazed at her, for she had attracted attention from the first. she knew that half the room was gazing at her, and she liked it. she guessed that half the room was saying: "look at that fresh young creature who's with that middle-aged man--she must be really very young." and she liked it. she liked to show herself with the man who was more than old enough to be her father, worn by knowledge and experience and the corrupting of the world; to contrast her untried simplicity--the bloom of the virginal scarcely gone from it--with his grey hairs and his wrinkled, disillusioned, passive eyes. she was happy in the thought that everybody knew that she must have given herself to him, and that there was something strange, sinister, and even odious in her abandonment. he had used the word "perverse." she did not wholly understand the word, but it appealed to her, and for her it expressed her mood.
she had noticed, in the room, how the women no longer unquestionably young were more consciously and carefully charming towards their men, receiving adulation but rendering it back; whereas the unquestionably young were more negligent and far more egotistic. and so she behaved like one no longer unquestionably young. she glanced up at her partner with ravishing, ecstatic smiles; she publicly adored him. and she was glad that her green and gold frock with its long arm-holes was not of the wigmore street cut, but quite other in origin and spirit and in its effect upon the imagination.
the dancing had by this time become general, but the olive-tinted temptresses were still prominent in the throng, and sometimes she touched them in the curves of the dance. she knew where they beat her and where she beat them. and it was vouchsafed to her from the eyes of felix that she was lovely and marvellous. she felt intensely, inexpressibly happy, and more than happy--triumphant. her quiet, obstinate resentment against the domestic policy of her father died out, and she forgave him as she danced. she thought with a secret sigh almost painful in its relief:
"thank god i have fulfilled myself and succeeded not too late!"
she had premonitions of power, a foretaste of dominion. felix was hers. she could influence him. she could re-make him. and for the thousandth time she breathed to him in her soul: "i have made you happy, but i will make you more happy--infinitely more happy. you don't know yet what i am capable of." he danced very correctly and quite nicely,--rather stiff, of course, but with a certain clever abandonment of his body to the rhythm. she thought: "with what women did he learn to dance? he must have danced a lot. never will i ask! never!" the fox-trot ended.
as they were crossing the floor to their table she saw lord mackworth dining with a man older than himself at a table near the windows. she sat down to the sweet. he had caught sight of her and was looking at her fixedly. she stared at him for a moment with the casually interested stare of non-recognition, perfectly executed.
"the yacht hasn't left, then, after all," she reflected, and to felix: "did that big yacht leave to-night?"
"no," said felix. "i heard they'd changed their minds." felix had the faculty of hearing everything.
in spite of herself lilian was disturbed.
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