GAY LIFE. E. M. Delafield
Mary Morgan and Mr. Bolham remained together on the terrace, watching the car, diminishing swiftly, rush down the S-like curves of the long drive.
"Why do you allow your charming children to go anywhere with that vulgar woman and her appendages?" enquired Mr. Bolham, although aware that the question was quite unjustifiable, if judged by the extent of his acquaintance with Mrs. Morgan.
She replied to it, however, readily and without any trace of resentment.
"Partly because I'm sorry for the boy, Patrick. The children say he's nice. And partly on principle."
"What principle?"
Mrs. Morgan's blue eyes rested on him thoughtfully, as though wondering if he were really interested. Mr. Bolham, who was, endeavoured to look as intelligent as he felt.
"If we're going to discuss principles," said Mary Morgan at last, "don't you think we might sit down?"
Mr. Bolham, desiring nothing better than a conversation with her, brought forward two deck-chairs, and they sat down, by mutual consent finding a place in the now diminishing heat of the sun.
"Well—what principle impels you to expose your children to the contamination of a third-rate adventuress?" said Mr. Bolham pleasantly.
"I don't believe in tying children to their mother's apron-strings. They'll have to meet all kinds of people in the end. They can only learn to discriminate by experience."
"They're too young."
"No," said Mary kindly, but with decision. "I assure you they're not. I think so many mothers make that mistake. Of course, really, they want to go on believing that the children are babies—not individuals—because they're afraid of losing them."
"And how do you get over that—the fear of losing them, I mean?"
"I suppose by facing it. By letting them" —she smiled at him—"associate with third-rate adventuresses. Though really, you know, I do think you're rather hard on Mrs. Romayne. She's very good-natured."
"I wonder if Waller intends to enter into competition with that outrageous tutor?"
"I shouldn't think so. Yes—that is bad. I'm so sorry for the poor boy, Patrick. I suppose she thinks that he doesn't notice."
"Far more likely she never thinks about him at all."
"He's a nice boy—terribly pathetic. Olwen has made friends with him, I think."
"I wonder you let them— However, I've said that before."
"Well," said Mary Morgan, "I will admit that I mightn't have sent them all off just now, if I hadn't known that my husband was already at the rocks. They'll join up with him."
"He's a fine swimmer. Does he like this place? Do you?"
Mrs. Morgan appeared to consider. One of the things he liked about her was that she never seemed to be surprised by anything he asked, and she always gave consideration to her reply.
"Pretty well," she said at last. "I like the sun, of course, and the swimming, and seeing the children turn brown. I don't like the Hotel, much, or many of the people in it."
Her eyes, perhaps unconsciously, wandered to where the new couple, the young Moons, were rising from their table and preparing to go indoors.
"That girl is lovely," she added irrelevantly.
"No," said Mr. Bolham. "Prettyish, if you like, and good legs. But a vicious fool. So's he."
"How irresponsible you are in your statements," observed Mrs. Morgan.
Mr. Bolham, who had a not inconsiderable reputation as a savant in his own circles—which were London Library circles—received this in surprised silence.
The young man, Moon, approached them.
"I wonder if I might bother you for a light, sir," he said, with an accent of nonchalance that completely neutralised his use of the respectful monosyllable. "One hasn't yet learnt to realise that one isn't wearing pockets."
The slighting gesture with which he indicated his smart new beach-wear was directed towards Mrs. Morgan, who smiled in reply.
Mr. Bolham, not smiling, produced matches.
"Thanks. My wife remembered to bring down her cigarette-case, but forgot the matches. Here you are, Angie." His wife had joined them.
He lit her cigarette.
"Thanks a lot," said the girl, not looking at any of them.
There was a moment's pause.
"Well—I think we'll go and have a dip," said Mr. Moon. "It's a bore not having brought a car. We didn't know this Hotel was so far from the sea."
"It's a disadvantage," Mary Morgan agreed.
Mr. Bolham, whose large Sunbeam was in the Hotel garage, said no word, and the Moons, swaying slightly from the hips as they walked, went away.
(3)
"Pretty bloody, weren't they?" observed Hilary.
"Oh, quite. Still, one's got to begin somewhere, and the concierge says the Morgans have been here longer than anyone. They're sure to know everybody in the Hotel."
"Well, I shall go round to those villa people this evening. I suppose it might be as well to try and remember their name first."
Angie made no reply. The Moons seldom held sustained conversations with one another.
She cursed the heat, and the uneven surface of the winding road, and decided within her own mind that the old stick-in-the-mud—this was Mr. Bolham—was worse than useless, though Hilary might stand a possible chance with him, provided he didn't swank. She knew this by instinct, as she also knew by instinct that Mr. Bolham was a rich man whose wealth had been inherited rather than earned.
Mrs. Morgan was not rich, and she clearly belonged to a world about which the Moons practically knew nothing whatever, and which knew nothing whatever about them.
Angie dismissed her.
The pink-pyjama'd woman was the person to cultivate—Mrs. Romayne. She obviously shared Angie's own predilections for free drinks, the society of men, and an atmosphere of talk and laughter, and noise, and general looseness.
The French people were no use.
Buckland and Waller were both young, more or less unattached, and each had certainly remarked Angie. They would be easy.
The American, Muller, was obviously most worth while, but he would also be far more impervious to her attractions than the younger and less experienced men. Angie had no illusions, and she knew very well that a rich and travelled American would have met her type over and over again.
CHAPTER II
(1)
The rocks, to which Mrs. Romayne's new and superb Buick conveyed the party at break-neck speed, formed a small bay where a section of the Mediterranean splashed gently and tidelessly.
Buckland pulled the car up by the side of the road, and everyone got out and began the descent, which was steep and necessitated climbing.
The children, already in bathing-suits, negotiated it easily. Patrick Romayne hung back, and put out his hand doubtfully to help his mother.
"Don't touch me," she screamed. "I shall overbalance if you do."
"I'll go first," volunteered Denis Waller, clinging in a most uncertain fashion to a ledge of red rock, and