Тринадцать гостей / Thirteen Guests. Джозеф Джефферсон Фарджон
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“I’m not a great dancer,” he answered, “but I like it.”
“You’re cut out for the diplomatic service,” she smiled, “you answer questions so tactfully! I could hardly lie still! There were better dancers that time than this. Apart from Mr. Taverley—and even he trod on my foot once”—She advanced a shoe and regarded the gold-sandalled toe—“there’s not a good dancer here. Well, Lord Aveling’s not bad—but the rest! Sir James dances with a sort of pompous caution. Mr. Pratt seems to have the one object of preventing you from knowing what steps he’s going to do next. I can usually follow anybody, but he beats me. I’m sure it’s on purpose. Of course, his bosom companion, Mr. Bultin, doesn’t dance at all. Or, if he does, he won’t. He just watches with a kind of insulting boredom. So I escaped him. Also Mr. Rowe. But Mr. Chater—oh, my God! We almost came to blows!”
“How does Mr. Chater dance?” inquired John, feeling that all this conversation was mere prelude. “I can’t imagine him dancing attractively.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, you’re right, anyway. He—how can one describe it?—he seems to press, and yet he doesn’t. I think it’s because he is pressing with his mind. He was asking questions—quite quietly and casually—all the time we danced.” She laughed. “He even asked a question about us.”
“What—you and me?”
“You and me. He wanted to know whether we’d known each other a long while.”
“Confound the fellow! It wasn’t his business!”
“So I implied. Although he did it quite nicely. Shall I tell you what he reminds me of? A fairly intelligent worm—and after talking with fairly intelligent worms, I always feel I want a bath!”
“I suppose it was when you implied that it wasn’t his business that you nearly came to blows?” asked John.
“No—we just survived that one. It was when he said, ‘Did I hear somebody say your husband’s in the army?’”
“I—see,” murmured John.
“I believe you do,” she answered.
A wave of anger swept through him.
“The man’s a cad!” he exclaimed. “What’s he doing here?”
“That’s what I’m wondering, Mr. Foss,” replied Nadine thoughtfully. “Lord Aveling sometimes collects queer folk, but he’s rather excelled himself this week-end—I’ve not come across Mr. Chater’s type here before. By the way—do you know my husband isn’t in the army?”
John nodded, and hoped he was not flushing as he recalled the information Taverley had given him.
“Would it be cricket to ask who told you?”
“But you know that, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course. Harold Taverley. He was one of my husband’s best friends.”
“He still is.”
She looked at him quizzically, then smiled.
“You put that rather nicely,” she said. “And is Harold Taverley still my friend? No, never mind. I’m asking unfair questions.” She paused. She gave a queer little sigh. “Well, we’ve exhausted the cabbages and kings!”
She checked a movement to rise from the pouffe, and hunched her shoulders instead. The green wrap slipped from her back. As she half-turned to pick it up, a bare shoulder touched his sleeve.
“Your first impulse was right,” he said.
“What impulse?” she answered.
“Weren’t you going?”
“Yes. And then I decided not to.”
“Well—I think you’d better!”
“You’re not afraid of Mr. Chater?”
“Hell, no! I beg your pardon.”
“I like honest swearing, and hell’s a good word. Mr. Leveridge used it constantly. Are you afraid of me?”
“That’s possible. But more of myself. So, you see, you’d really better go.”
“It wouldn’t do any good.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’d only want me back again.”
He took a breath. He could not decide at that instant whether she were wonderful or hateful.
“Suppose that’s true?” he demanded.
“There’s no need to suppose it,” she replied smoothly. “It is true. I’m sorry I brought you here. That’s one thing I wanted to say. But, as I have, let’s face it and talk it out, shall we? It’s only when you don’t face facts that they become exaggeratedly distorted—or fruitless.”
He decided that she was wonderful. Already the idea of facing facts and of avoiding conventional subterfuges brought some ease to his mind, although he had no notion where the process was going to lead.
“Then let me make an admission,” he said. “It may—explain things a bit. My attitude, I mean. You’ve come upon me at a pretty bad time, Mrs. Leveridge.” He said “Mrs. Leveridge” for the conventional protection of it. “There’s no need to tell you things that just concern myself—that wouldn’t interest you. But please accept them as an explanation of my mood and of any silly blundering. I dare say you were right not to act upon that first impulse of yours to go. Yes, I’m sure you were. Something had to be said—you didn’t know quite what—but now I hope I’ve said it. If I have, you’re released to go back to the ballroom.”
“I haven’t implied any burning desire to go back to the ballroom,” she reminded him.
“Well—anywhere else.”
“Anywhere but here? Because, if I don’t, my seconds are numbered, and you will leap up, despite your foot, and throw your arms round my neck?”
“Lord! I give it up!” he muttered.
“No, don’t give it up—stick to it,” replied Nadine soberly, “only try playing it my way. I know a lot more about men than you do about women, which is generally the case, although men can rarely bring themselves to believe it—and I know a lot about you. No, don’t interrupt. I’ll tell you what I know. Not dates and facts and things. I don’t know the year you were born in, for instance, or the house you live in. I don’t know your particular sport, though I’m sure you’ve got one and it isn’t hunting. You’re not fond of killing things, and would only do it happily for England. You look as if you’d got your fair share of that particular folly. I don’t know—” She paused suddenly. “Want me to go on? Now I’m warning you!”
He nodded. She pressed her cigarette-end into an ashtray, and continued: