“You would not find me ungrateful.”
“Well, sir, I don't like to appear unobliging, but it's not part of my duties.”
He seemed to be wavering but Blenkinsop interposed.
“Quite out of the question, sir.”
When Tony left them Blenkinsop spoke from the depth of his experience; it was the first job that he and James had been on together, and he felt under some obligation to put his junior wise.
“Our trouble is always the same — to make the clients realize that divorce is a serious matter.”
Eventually extravagant promises for the morrow, two or three ices and the slight depression induced by them, persuaded Winnie to go to bed.
“How are we going to sleep?” asked Milly.
“Oh, just as you like.”
“Just as you like.”
“Well perhaps Winnie would be happier with you … she'll have to go into the other room tomorrow morning when they bring in breakfast, of course.”
So she was tucked up in a corner of the double bed and to Tony's surprise was asleep before they went down to dinner.
A change of clothes brought to both Tony and Milly a change of temper.
She, in her best evening frock, backless and vermilion, her face newly done and her bleached curls brushed out, her feet in high red shoes, some bracelets on her wrists, a dab of scent behind the large sham pearls in her ears, shook off the cares of domesticity and was once more in uniform, reporting for duty, a legionary ordered for active service after the enervating restraints of a winter in barracks; and Tony, filling his cigar case before the mirror, and slipping it into the pocket of his dinner jacket, reminded himself that phantasmagoric, and even gruesome as the situation might seem to him, he was nevertheless a host, so that he knocked at the communicating door and passed with a calm manner into his guest's room; for a month now he had lived in a world suddenly bereft of order; it was as though the whole reasonable and decent constitution of things, the sum of all he had experienced or learned to expect, were an inconspicuous, inconsiderable object mislaid somewhere on the dressing table; no outrageous circumstance in which he found himself, no new mad thing brought to his notice could add a jot to the all-encompassing chaos that shrieked about his ears.
He smiled at Milly from the doorway.
“Charming,” he said, “perfectly charming.
Shall we go down to dinner?”
Their rooms were on the first floor.
Step by step, with her hand on his arm, they descended the staircase into the bright hall below.
“Cheer up,” said Milly.
“You have a tongue sandwich. That'll make you talk.”
“Sorry, am I being a bore?”
“I was only joking.
You are a serious boy, aren't you?”
In spite of the savage weather the hotel seemed full of week-end visitors.
More were arriving through the swing doors, their eyes moist and their cheeks rigid from the icy cold outside.
“Yids,” explained Milly superfluously.
“Still it's nice to get a change from the club once in a while.”
One of the new arrivals was a friend of Milly's.
He was supervising the collection of his luggage.
Anywhere else he would have been a noticeable figure, for he wore a large fur coat and a beret; under the coat appeared tartan stockings and black and white shoes.
“Take `em up and get `em unpacked and quick about it,” he said.
He was a stout little young man.
His companion, also in furs, was staring resentfully at one of the showcases that embellished the hall.
“Oh for Christ's sake,” she said.
Milly and the young man greeted each other.
“This is Dan,” she said.
“Well, well, well,” said Dan, “what next.”
“Do I get a drink?” said Dan's girl.
“Baby, you do, if I have to get it myself.
Won't you two join us, or are we de trop?”
They went together into the glittering lounge.
“I'm cold like hell,” said Baby.
Dan had taken off his greatcoat and revealed a suit of smooth, purplish plus fours, and a silk shirt of a pattern Tony might have chosen for pyjamas.
“We'll soon warm you up,” he said.
“This place stinks of yids,” said Baby.
“I always think that's the sign of a good hotel, don't you?” said Tony.
“Like hell,” said Baby.
“You mustn't mind Baby, she's cold,” Dan explained.
“Who wouldn't be in your lousy car?”