Part 49 (2/2)
Presently they got up to go to the theatre, leaving the other quartet behind them, quite willing to be late.
”Moscovitch doesn't come on for some time,” said Mrs. Ackroyde. ”And we are only going to see him. The play is nothing extraordinary. Where are you sitting?”
Braybrooke told her the number of their box.
”We are just opposite to you then,” she said.
”Mind you behave prettily, Adela!” said Lady Wrackley.
”I have almost forgotten how to behave in a theatre,” she said. ”I go to the play so seldom. You shall give me some hints on conduct, Mr.
Craven.”
And she turned and led the way out of the restaurant, nodding to people here and there whom she knew.
Her big motor was waiting outside, and they all got into it. Braybrooke and Craven sat on the small front seats, sideways, so that they could talk to their companions; and they flashed through the busy streets, coming now and then into the gleam of lamplight and looking vivid, then gliding on into shadows and becoming vague and almost mysterious. As they crossed Piccadilly Circus Miss Van Tuyn said:
”What a contrast to our walk that night!”
”This way of travelling?” said Lady Sellingworth.
”Yes. Which do you prefer, the life of Soho and the streets and raw humanity, or the Rolls-Royce life?”
”Oh, I am far too old, and far too fixed in my habits to make any drastic change in my way of life,” said Lady Sellingworth, looking out of the window.
”You didn't like your little experience the other night enough to repeat it?” said Miss Van Tuyn.
As she spoke Craven saw her eyes gazing at him in the shadow. They looked rather hard and searching, he thought.
”Oh, some day I'll go to the _Bella Napoli_ again with you, Beryl, if you like.”
”Thank you, dearest,” said Miss Van Tuyn, rather drily.
And again Craven saw her eyes fixed upon him with a hard, steady look.
The car sped by the Monico, and Braybrooke, glancing with distaste at the crowd of people one could never wish to know outside it, wondered how the tall woman opposite to him with the diamonds flas.h.i.+ng in her ears had ever condescended to push her way among them at night, to rub shoulders with those awful women, those furtive and evil-looking men.
”But she must have some kink in her!” he thought, and thanked G.o.d because he had no kink, or at any rate knew of none which disturbed him.
The car drew up at the theatre, and they went to their box. It was large enough for three to sit in a row in the front, and Craven insisted on Braybrooke taking the place between the two women, while he took the chair in the shadow behind Lady Sellingworth.
The curtain was already up when they came in, and a large and voluble man, almost like a human earthquake, was talking in broken English interspersed with sonorous Italian to a worried-looking man who sat before a table in a large and gaudily furnished office.
The talk was all about singers, contracts, the opera.
Craven glanced across the theatre and saw a big, empty box on the opposite side of the house. The rest of the house was full. He saw many Jews.
Lady Sellingworth leaned well forward with her eyes fixed on the stage, and seemed interested as the play developed.
”They are just like that!” she whispered presently, half turning to Craven.
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