Part 72 (2/2)
”To one who had seen you the other nights,” he said with complimentary candour.
She laughed. ”How is your mother?”
”Oh, she's very well, thank you. She lives in London now.”
”Then your father has retired from--”
”He is dead,--didn't you hear?”
”No.” Eileen sat in shocked silence. ”I am sorry,” she murmured at length. But underneath this mild shock she was conscious--as they rolled on without speaking--of a new ease that had come into her life: some immense relaxation of tension. ”A hunted criminal must breathe more calmly when he is caught,” she thought.
XIX
”Lucky I'm in evening dress,” she said, loosening her cloak as they went through a corridor, s.h.i.+mmering with dresses and diamonds, to a crowded supper-room.
”But you're always in evening dress, surely.”
”I might have been in tights.” And she had a malicious self-wounding pleasure in watching him gasp. She hurried into a revelation of her exact position, as soon as they had secured a just-vacated little table in a window niche. She omitted only Colonel Doherty.
He listened breathlessly. ”And n.o.body knows you are Eileen O'Keeffe, I mean Nelly O'Neill?”
She laughed. ”You see _you_ don't know which I am.”
”It's incredible.”
”So much the worse for your theories of credibility. The longer I live, the less the Show surprises me.”
”What show?”
”Oh, it's too long to explain. Say Vanity Fair.” Her thumb fell into its old habit of flicking the table. There was a silence.
”I am sorry you told me,” he said slowly.
”Why?”
A waiter loomed over them.
”Supper, Sir Robert?”
She glanced quickly at her companion.
”Yes,” he said. ”_Ma buonissima!_ I leave it to you. And champagne.”
”_Prestissimo_, Sir Robert.” He smirked himself off.
”Why does he call you that?” she asked.
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