don’t look so blinking bewildered! C’est moi!”
Crepe de chine blouse gave hints of curves that, though never before glimpsed, evoked tactile memories.
“Maybe it was the lighting. You just didn’t look like you at all!”
Taking his hand, Diane nudged him to the sofa, where a floor lamp made an island of half brilliance; the remainder of the room was left in shadows accented by glints of bronze, the twinkle of ceramics, the gilt of a picture frame, and the glint of decanters and goblets on the buffet.
“Your hairdo. And—” Felix was still embarrassed. He must have gaped like the village idiot!
“It’s more than the frivolous hairdo that a housekeeper simply does not wear!” Diane dipped into shadows and produced a black dress and white blouse, quite crisp, stiff, and impersonal,
“First time you’ve ever seen me wear anything but this. Like the girl in the camera shop. And sensible shoes. And makeup that simply is not makeup.”
Diane flipped the horrible examples into the shadows and stepped back a pace, giving him a good look at dainty strap sandals, red reptile with high heels. These, and the burnt orange brocade skirt of exactly the right length, amazed him—he had never suspected that this or any other woman could have such lovely legs and exquisite ankles.
“Of course I am someone else, and I love it! And you knew the difference between the dragon housekeeper, herding the staff around and browbeating tradespeople. Right now, you are not the young master and there is no one I address respectfully as ‘madame’!”
By now, Felix was back to normal. Instead of being a juvenile moron, he had paid her a compliment. “You even smell different.”
“Of course I do! Does a female major domo use perfume that competes with madame la châtelaine! Do sit down! You need a drink.”
She poured Denis Mounier Fine Champagne cognac into medium-size warmed snifter goblets. Inhaling the fragrance of cognac, with occasional birdlike nips of the liqueur, has in spirit something in common with the stately Japanese tea ceremony; although there is nothing ritualistic in the enjoyment of good brandy, there is communion between drinkers and drink.
After pouring the cognac, she had seated herself in a chair facing Felix. Each regarded the other: This was so different from the “good-nighters” to which they had become accustomed. That they had taken so long to sip so little made it clear that each loved fine brandy and knew that the other did. And through cognac communion, they knew that moment after moment brandy was becoming less and less important.
Diane’s deeply drawn breath and her leaning back and stretching from the waist rounded the crepe de chine blouse in curves akin to those of the glasses that were contoured like magnolia buds about to ripen into blossom. Exhaling, she twisted a little to set her glass on the kidney-shaped end table with its red marble top and saw-pierced brass guard rim.
The long moment ended when, instead of by legerdemain, it was dexterity of ankle and toes that got her feet free of red reptile and high heels. Suppleness of body made it beautiful when, with leg cocked over knee, she busied herself taking a reef in hosiery that he knew must be silk. When it gathered about the ankle, Felix was sure there were no such snags or runners as he would have started. When he had his chance to undress Diane in fact as he had so often in fancy, he would know how. That would be next time.
Having her between the sheets and by light borrowed from the adjoining room was luxury, but most of all was pillow talk, and not in whispers.
And time to refill the snifters.
Freedom from furtiveness! What the barracks boasters imagined they knew about women was becoming ever more pathetic.
In view of the Governor-General’s history, there were questions; answering these and keeping the glasses replenished made it a marvelously busy evening for Felix.
“...is he actually going to retire?”
And another fragment, between additions of another thirty cubic centimeters of Grande Fine: “...he’ll be going to North America to see wartime comrades before it is too late?”
Like her guest, Diane was finding it a crowded evening.
Felix would ponder, frown thoughtfully, and come up with answers indicating that he had considered both sides of every question. His earnestness, his thoroughness, impressed Diane until, bit by bit, she realized that instead of clarifying anything, Felix ended by spreading a smoke screen of ambiguity. And since the dream girl had never met the Old Man, it was too soon for her to wonder whether thoroughness was in fact hereditary secretiveness, spontaneous and instinctive.
Felix did not know that Roderick David Garvin’s fixed opinion—one of a great many, that is—was to the effect that “Women, especially wives, excepting of course Azadeh, make it their life’s work to ask the god-double-damnedest questions.”
Although Felix thus far had had no wives and only one mother, wherefore his generalizations were scarcely based on experience, the Garvin Doctrine was taking—had already taken—form.
“Now that your sister has completed her higher education, do you suppose that madame your mother would still find North America as revolting as Mars?”
For the first time, Felix had a forthright answer. “Honey, I am no mind reader. You might ask madame the Old Lady.”
But to eliminate purely personal bias, he added that she should consult a good astrologer.
A medium dollop of Grande Fine went into each goblet. And Felix finally began to cogitate: Diane is a girl-watcher’s dream, a real pièce de resistance... With the Old Man always having women on the brain, this Mademoiselle Hot Panites might get the idea of becoming the First Lady of Mars.
Grande Fine Champagne grade of cognac is perhaps the most civilized, the most gracious of the many spirits that man has distilled. Accordingly, it is also one of the most insidious. Although a persistent clod can guzzle himself puking drunk, he or she who knows how attains the earlier stages of apotheosis, then restful sleep, and, eventually, happy resurrection.
When the clock of Cathedrale Ste. Marie trolled three, Diane was nearing nirvana. At the half hour, she sighed and stretched luxuriously. Although her words were French, they would have conveyed her meaning if she had addressed Felix in Old High Etruscan or Gujarati. “Chéri, I have had it. And you have had your share.”
Instead of telling her that the evening was still young, he countered, “Of cognac or of you?”
“You devil! I’d love to have you stay for late breakfast, but not until Monsieur the Governor-General and Madame la Chatelaine are honeymooning, and she is too busy persuading him to stay in France and forgets to watch your hours.”
Her voice was more convincing even than her logic. “Might be a good idea, having a taxi meet me at the épicérie door. That way nobody would suspect I was leaving you.”
He would be mistaken for a customer leaving the back door of the deluxe whorehouse that fronted on Boulevard Rempart de Lachepaillet. She was so pleased by his finesse that she did not follow his clear logic.
Diane sat up, swayed a little, fumbled, and found the robe that had gotten itself bemuddled with sheet, pillow, and evening paper. Abandoning her struggle with the garment,
