"Waller, are you doing anything after dinner?" asked Buckland, as he went past.
"Nothing very special. Not in the early part of the evening, at any rate."
People might think that he wasn't any good at his job if he had too much free time. He had hinted once or twice before that much of his work was done in the silence of the night. And indeed, he would willingly have worked at so suitable and dramatic an hour had Mr. Bolham suggested it. But Mr. Bolham never did.
"Come along with us, and pay a call on a celebrated lady-novelist. We'll make a party of it, won't we?" Buckland appealed to Mrs. Romayne.
"That's right. The new people are coming along—their name's Moon. They've got a letter of introduction or something. We'll make a night of it. Can't you get Mr. Bolham to come too, Mr. Waller?"
"I think he has some reading he wants to do. But I should be very pleased indeed—that is to say, if it isn't an intrusion——"
"We'll go in the car," said Mrs. Romayne, powdering her nose.
"Thank you so much. I should be delighted to come. Thank you."
With a little bow, he moved on.
"Ass!" said Mrs. Romayne, audibly.
Denis supposed that she was addressing Buckland. He thought her a dreadful woman, but he wanted to meet young Mrs. Moon, whose looks he had admired very much on the terrace that afternoon, and he was excited at the idea of going to see a celebrated novelist. He wished that he had ever read any of her books.
In the hall, Mr. Bolham was talking to Mrs. Morgan. He had taken a chair, and the coffee—Denis's coffee—was on a little table in front of him.
Denis nervously poured some out into the cup. Then he saw Gwennie Morgan, and instinctively he smiled at her, and for a moment forgot Denis Waller.
"I'm sorry to say I've got to go to bed," announced Gwennie resentfully. "I suppose you're going to have a marvellous time."
"Not specially, Gwennie. I'm going to be taken by Mrs. Romayne to call on a lady who writes books."
"That's much more exciting than just going to bed. Is Patrick Romayne going with you?"
"I don't know. I hope he is."
"Why?"
"Well, I think he's a very nice boy, don't you?" Denis enquired mildly.
He remembered with genuine compassion that Patrick was in need of help. Denis had meant —and still meant—to try and gain an influence over him. Service, thought Denis vaguely and splendidly .... Service and brotherhood....
"Oh, Mr. Waller," said the breathless voice of Dulcie Courteney. "Oh, I must tell you,—what do you think?—Pops is arriving to-morrow! Isn't it lovely?"
"How exciting," said Denis sympathetically. "You didn't think he'd be coming so soon, did you?"
"No, Mr. Waller, I didn't. It's lovely, isn't it? I must tell Mrs. Morgan."
She told Mrs. Morgan, who made suitable reply, and was backed up by an indeterminate murmur from Mr. Bolham, and then Dulcie looked all round the hall.
"I feel I simply must tell everyone," she announced in her lisping treble. "You see, it's so lovely for me. I do love my Pops. You see, I haven't got a mummie, like Gwennie and Olwen have, and so Pops means just everything to me."
She flitted off, and Denis, who was really rather touched, observed: "Poor little thing!"
"Poor little thing nothing," harshly and unexpectedly exclaimed Mrs. Romayne at his elbow. "That kid makes me perfectly sick, with her Pops this and Pops the other. No wonder she hasn't got a mother! Any woman would leave a child like that."
"If you had a child like that, would you leave her?" enquired Gwennie with assumed artlessness.
Her mother said: "Good-night, Gwennie. Go now," and Mrs. Romayne laughed.
"I like Gwennie," she said good-temperedly. "She's so downright. Well, boys and girls, what about it? The car's outside."
She swept out, with the air of one making an exit.
Denis, following with Buckland, heard Mrs. Morgan's low, clear voice addressing Mr. Bolham.
"I don't think I should exactly call Gwennie downright, myself. She's much too Welsh."
"Personally, I should say she was abominably and precociously subtle-minded," said Mr. Bolham, and they both laughed.
Denis was quite startled at the sound of a laugh from his employer.
The Buick was outside.
"Who's driving, Coral?" enquired Buckland, speaking rather too loudly. It was the first time he had called her Coral in public.
"I'll drive myself, for a change. Get in, everyone."
"Isn't Patrick coming?" asked Buckland uneasily.
"No, he says he's got a book he wants to finish. Get in, Mr. What-is-it—oh, hell, can't we all use Christian names and have done with it? I'm Coral."
"I'm Hilary, and she's Angie."
Denis said nothing. He was divided between his anxiety to please the people with whom he found himself, and prove himself at home in their group, and his nervous, middle-class anxiety as to the conventionalities. He felt sure that the Morgans, for instance, wouldn't exchange Christian names with hotel acquaintances. Mrs. Romayne, unaware of these conflicting points of view, settled the matter for him.
"You're Denis, I know. You're not Irish, are you?"
"No—no, I'm not. My grandfather, as a matter of fact, was Scotch—my mother's father. I believe I'm entitled to wear the plaid of the——"
"Hop in," said Buckland. "You can't wear kilts here, if that's what you're after."
The laughter that followed seemed to Denis unnecessary. He felt rather disappointed in Mrs. Moon, but she looked lovely in a pale moonlight-blue pyjama suit, cut very low, with her thick, fair curls of hair brushed back behind her ears.
Almost like Esther Ralston, or someone, thought Denis. He sat next to Buckland, who, with his accustomed lack of manners, had climbed first into the car and taken his place next to Angie Moon. The car was a wide one, but Denis could feel the hard, swelling thews and sinews of Buckland's substantial thigh, pressing against his own, and the contact displeased and offended him.
He was glad when the Buick, after flying dangerously round the steep curves of the road, presently drew up with grinding brakes at the entrance to a little white villa, standing in the midst of pines and olives, by the side of the coast.
"I spotted the name on the gate, just as I was going to pass it," said Mrs. Romayne.
They got out. Denis stood politely at the door of the car, extending a hand to assist Angie Moon, but she did not seem to see it, and again Denis felt snubbed.
It was the first time that he had been to a French house that was neither a shop nor a hotel, and he thought the tiny garden, with a small, romantic fountain splashing in a stone basin, very pretty.
A woman in a black dress and white apron came to the door, smiled at them and said:
"Par ici, messieurs-dames. Sur la terrasse."
They followed her in single file across a little circular room, evidently a living-room, and then through a side door, to a kind of pavilion, an oblong of white pavement set between white pillars, overlooking the sea and roofed in with thick, twisted vines. Wicker chairs with bright cretonne cushions stood about, and a round marble-topped table held a tray and coffee-cups. Sitting upright in front of it was a rather monumental lady in a black evening dress, talking to a small group of people. She broke off—well she might, thought Denis—at the sight of five visitors coming in, one after another, and there