Part 11 (1/2)

He was sure that Alice Paine hadn't said, ”Oh, dear,” since her wedding day, either. She was not that sort of woman. She was also not the sort of woman who didn't know where to begin.

”Begin in the middle,” he said, ”and we'll work it around.” Her nervousness made him uncomfortable.

”You believe that we're your friends?” she said. ”I mean Robert and myself.”

”Of course.”

”I mean, that's important,” she said. ”I wouldn't like you to think that I'm a meddlesome woman, or malicious, or anything like that.”

”You couldn't be meddlesome or malicious if you tried.” By now he was sorry he had been in the office when she had called.

”We had dinner at your house last night,” she said abruptly. ”Robert and I.”

”I hope you had a good meal.”

”It was perfect. As usual,” she said. ”Except that you weren't there.”

”I'm not home very much these days.”

”So I gathered,” Alice said.

”How was the guest list?”

”Unbrilliant.”

”As usual,” Craig said.

”Bertie Folsom was there.”

”As usual,” Craig said.

She glanced quickly at him again. ”People are beginning to talk, Jesse.”

”People are always beginning to talk,” he said.

”I don't know what sort of arrangement you and Penelope have,” Alice said, ”but they're seen together everywhere.”

”I don't know what sort of arrangement we have, either,” he said. ”I guess you could call it a large, loose nonarrangement. Is that what you came to tell me-that Penelope and Bertie have been seen together?”

”No,” she said. ”Not really. First, I want to tell you that Robert and I aren't coming to your house anymore.”

”That's too bad,” he said. ”Why?”

”It goes a long way back. Four years, to be exact.”

”Four years?” He frowned. ”What happened four years ago?”

”Do you think I could ask for another martini?” she said. She sounded like a little girl asking for a second ice cream cone.

”Of course.” He waved to the waiter and ordered two more drinks.

”You were out of town somewhere,” Alice said. ”We were giving a little dinner party. We invited Penelope. Then, to round out the table, we had to find an extra man. Somehow, it always turns out that the extra man is Bertie Folsom.”

”What else is new?” Craig said lightly.

”The trouble with tall men like you,” Alice said severely, ”is that they never take small men seriously.”

”It's true,” Craig said, ”he's a very small man. So-he sat next to Penelope at dinner.”

”He took her home.”

”Zounds! He took her home.”

”You think I'm a silly, gossipy woman ...”

”Not really, Alice,” he said gently. ”It's just that ...”

”Sssh,” she said, and gestured toward the waiter, who was approaching with their drinks.

They sat in silence until the waiter had gone back to the bar.

”All right,” Alice said. ”This is what happened. The next morning I received a dozen red roses. Anonymously. No card.”

”That could mean anything,” Craig said, although by now he knew it couldn't mean anything.

”Every year, on the same date,” Alice said, ”October fifth, I get a dozen red roses. Anonymously. Of course he knows I know who sends them. He wants me to know. It's so vulgar. I feel tainted-like an accomplice-every time I go to your house and see him there eating your food, drinking your liquor. And I've felt like such a coward, not saying anything to him, not telling you. And last night, seeing him there sitting at the head of the table pouring the wine, acting the host, staying on after everybody had left-I talked it over with Robert, and he agreed with me, I couldn't keep quiet anymore.”

”Thanks for today,” Craig said. He leaned over and kissed her cheek.

”I don't know what kind of code we all go by,” Alice said. ”I know we're not supposed to take adultery seriously anymore, that we laugh when we hear about our friends playing around-I've heard some stories about you, too.”

”I'm sure you have,” he said. ”Most of them no doubt true. My marriage has hardly been a model of felicity for a long time.”

”But this particular thing I can't take,” Alice said. There was a catch in her voice. ”You're an admirable man. A decent friend. And I can't stand that awful little man. And to tell the truth, I've come to dislike Penelope. There's something false and hard about her with all her charming hostessy tricks. If I do have a code, I suppose it's that I think that certain people don't deserve what they have to endure, and if they're my friends, I finally have to do something about it. Are you sorry I've told you all this, Jesse?”

”I don't know yet,” he said slowly. ”Well, anyway, I'll see to it that you're not bothered by any more roses.”

The next day he sent a letter to his wife telling her he was seeing a lawyer about a divorce.

Another bar. In Paris now. In the Hotel Crillon, just across from the Emba.s.sy. He had fallen into the habit of meeting Constance there when she got through working. It gave a fixed point to his day. The rest of the time he spent wandering around the city, going into galleries, strolling through open-air markets and among the young people of the Latin Quarter, practicing his French in shops, sitting at cafe tables reading the newspapers, occasionally having lunch with one or two of the men who had been with him on the movie he had made in France and who were sensitive enough not to ask him what he was working on these days.

He liked the room, with its knots of English and American newspapermen arguing at the bar and its s.h.i.+fting population of polite, well-dressed, elderly Americans with New England accents who had been coming to the hotel since before the war. He liked, too, the looks of admiration on the faces of the other drinkers when Constance came hurrying into the bar.

He stood up to greet her, kissed her cheek. Although she had spent a whole day in a stuffy office chain-smoking cigarettes, she always smelled as though she had just come from a long walk in a forest.

She had a gla.s.s of champagne, to get the taste of youth out of her mouth, she said. ”I'm always surprised,” she said, sipping her champagne, ”to find you sitting here when I come in.”

”I told you I'd be here.”

”I know. Still, I'm surprised. Every time I leave you in the morning, I have the feeling that this is going to be the day you're going to meet someone irresistibly attractive or hear about an actor or actress in London or Zagreb or Athens you just have to see perform that night.”