A click and a voice, an eager, soft, slightly breathless voice:
"Hullo, is that Miss Ridgeway?
Linnet!"
"Jackie darling!
I haven't heard anything of you for ages and ages!"
"I know.
It's awful.
Linnet, I want to see you terribly."
"Darling, can't you come down here?
My new toy.
I'd love to show it to you."
"That's just what I want to do."
"Well, jump into a train or a car."
"Right, I will.
A frightfully dilapidated two-seater.
I bought it for fifteen pounds, and some days it goes beautifully.
But it has moods.
If I haven't arrived by tea time you'll know it's had a mood.
So long, my sweet."
Linnet replaced the receiver. She crossed back to Joanna.
"That's my oldest friend, Jacqueline de Bellefort.
We were together at a convent in Paris.
She's had the most terribly bad luck.
Her father was a French Count, her mother was American - a Southerner.
The father went off with some woman, and her mother lost all her money in the Wall Street crash.
Jackie was left absolutely broke.
I don't know how she's managed to get along the last two years."
Joanna was polishing her deep-blood-coloured nails with her friend's nail pad.
She leant back with her head on one side scrutinizing the effect.
"Darling," she drawled, "won't that be rather tiresome?
If any misfortunes happen to my friends I always drop them at once!
It sounds heartless, but it saves such a lot of trouble later!
They always want to borrow money off you, or else they start a dressmaking business and you have to get the most terrible clothes from them.
Or they paint lampshades, or do Batik scarves."
"So if I lost all my money, you'd drop me tomorrow?"
"Yes, darling, I would.
You can't say I'm not honest about it!
I only like successful people.
And you'll find that's true of nearly everybody - only most people won't admit it.
They just say that really they can't put up with Mary or Emily or Pamela any more! 'Her troubles have made her so bitter and peculiar, poor dear!"'
"How beastly you are, Joanna!"
"I'm only on the make, like everyone else."
"I'm not on the make!"
"For obvious reasons!
You don't have to be sordid when good-looking, middle-aged American trustees pay you over a vast allowance every quarter."
"And you're wrong about Jacqueline," said Linnet. "She's not a sponge.
I've wanted to help her, but she won't let me.
She's as proud as the devil."
"What's she in such a hurry to see you for?
I'll bet she wants something!