round again to the dark young man, and she saw that he—or more probably his companions—had been joined by two other men, one of them of some age between forty-five and fifty, an obvious American, and the other one fair and undersized, and very much younger.
The place, Angie decided, wasn't going to be hopeless at all.
"I'm going to have another orangeade," said Hilary. "What about you?"
"All right."
She didn't want the orangeade, but drinking it would be something to do, and it was worth while sitting on for a bit, letting all these men watch her, more or less surreptitiously, and giving them the chance of realising that she and Hilary were staying at the Hôtel d'Azur, and that they could get to know her without any difficulty at all.
(2)
Mr. Bolham, having been roused from some extremely serious reading that was his form of relaxation, looked with slight, habitual distaste at his elderly form and bald head reflected in the mirror, approved at the same time his beautiful white flannels, and went downstairs.
He walked, in preference to using the lift which had, three days earlier, stuck half-way down, imprisoning Mr. Bolham tête-à-tête with Mrs. Romayne, the lady now sitting, in pale pink pyjamas, on the terrace below. This misadventure, although it had only lasted for the space of seven minutes, had led to Mrs. Romayne's assuming an intimate and proprietary air towards Mr. Bolham ever since, and this, in its turn, had occasioned in Mr. Bolham a complex in regard to the use of the lift. He walked down the shallow white marble stairs.
At the Hotel entrance, he stood on the top step of another flight that led on to the terrace, and looked down on the red-and-white umbrellas, the little tables, the palm trees, and the several groups of Hotel guests sitting either in the shade or in the blaze of brilliant sunlight that still poured down steadily.
It was the misfortune of Mr. Bolham to dislike, temperately but quite genuinely, the majority of his fellow-creatures. He felt rather more conscious than usual of this idiosyncrasy, as he stood, unobserved, in the entrance-way of the Hotel.
He saw at once that some new people—the Moons—had arrived, and that the girl was strikingly pretty. The beauty of her face left him perfectly cold, for he descried in it neither intelligence, kindness, nor sensitiveness—but he was faintly moved by the beautiful lines of her body.
(Though by the time they've been here twenty-four hours, and she's got properly acclimatised, thought Mr. Bolham, I shall have seen practically all there is to see. She's the kind that comes down to dinner in shorts and a handkerchief.)
Hilary Moon he dismissed at once as being exactly like every other unemployed young man living in London and wearing round, horn-rimmed spectacles. He had certainly never done any hard manual work in his life, and Mr. Bolham surmised that his mental labours had gone no further than an occasional conversation, amongst drinks, with somebody who was in touch with somebody who had to do with the films, and perhaps a faintly fishy transaction or two in motor-cars.
Averting his gaze from the Moons, Mr. Bolham permitted it to seek and find Mrs. Romayne, in order that he might avoid sitting anywhere within reach of her conversation.
She was, as usual, surrounded by men. Her boy, Patrick, was there, looking faintly anxious and unhappy, as always, and her boy's tutor, Mr. Buckland—on such much franker and happier terms with Mrs. Romayne, conversationally, than Patrick ever seemed to be. Sitting with them were the dark, silent American financier, Muller, and a narrow young man of sallow colouring, at whom Mr. Bolham glanced with acute dislike. The young man was his temporary secretary, Denis Waller, and had only been engaged by Mr. Bolham a month earlier—and then mainly because Mr. Bolham had felt—mistakenly, as he now knew—that it would be too much trouble to interview the many other applicants for the post.
At the next table were Mrs. Morgan and her three children. Mr. Bolham resembled the Moons in disliking the society of children, although for other reasons. Quite simply, they made him feel inferior. Of their mother, he was inclined to think well. She was at once the least smart, and the only distinguished-looking, woman at the Hotel. Moreover, she always took the trouble to talk to her husband at meals.
If it had not been for the three children, Mr. Bolham felt that he might have taken a chair next to Mary Morgan's and talked to her. But she was listening to the earnest prattle of Olwen and David and Gwennie, and when presently they went down to the plage to bathe, she would probably go with them.
"Mr. Bolham, Mr. Bolham!"
Reluctantly turning round, Mr. Bolham found himself faced—as he had known, from the moment of hearing himself called, that he would be—by Dulcie Courteney. She was the thin, shrill, blonde daughter of the Hotel's Mr. Courteney, whose duties lay midway between those of a social entertainer and a courier. His horrible child, as Mr. Bolham invariably designated her in his own mind—and sometimes, indeed, in his conversation—was permanently installed in the Hotel, and it was understood that she was always ready to make friends with any English or American children, in order to improve their French, and to perform the like service for the English of any French children. Her command of both languages was undeniable, but Mr. Bolham considered that her accent, in either, was totally lacking in distinction.
The same thing could be said of her appearance. She was prettyish in a thin, green-eyed, fair-haired style, but her teeth, even at sixteen, were brittle-looking and discoloured, her figure under-developed and angular, and she had a habit of grimacing slightly whenever she spoke.
"Mr. Bolham, is your bedroom door locked?"
"Why should my bedroom door be locked?" said Mr. Bolham. "I've nothing to hide."
Dulcie gave a thin shriek of nervous laughter.
"You are funny, Mr. Bolham. I shall die. I suppose it did sound funny, me putting it like that. What I meant was, really, could I possibly pop in there, just for one second, to get something—well, it's a bathing-cloak really—that's fallen on to your balcony."
"Again?"
Dulcie giggled uncertainly.
"It's not my fault, Mr. Bolham," she said at last, putting her head on one side.
"I know. It's the Duvals."
"It just dropped off their window-ledge, you know."
"Did madame Duval send you to get it?"
Dulcie nodded.
"I expect she thought you might be a tiny bit cross, as it's happened so often," she suggested. Mr. Bolham felt her eyeing him anxiously, to see if this would get a laugh. He maintained, without any difficulty, a brassy irresponsiveness, and Dulcie immediately changed her methods.
"I like to do anything I'm asked, always—my Pops says that's one of the ways a little girl makes nice friends," she observed in a sudden falsetto. "And Marcelle—she lets me call her Marcelle, you know—she's always terribly sweet to me. So naturally, I like to run about and do errands for her, Mr. Bolham."
"Well, I hope you've enjoyed doing this one," said Mr. Bolham sceptically. "I'll send the towel, or whatever it is, up by the chambermaid."
"Oh, but Mr. Bolham," wailed Dulcie, "Marcelle wants it now. She's going down to bathe. Do let me just run in and get it. I won't look at anything—truly I won't."
