Perhaps the first premonitory breath of the oncoming winter of age.
That evening, after dinner, he talked to Berenice about his plans.
It would be best, he thought, to have Aileen accompany him to New York.
He would need to entertain a number of people, and it would look better if his wife were there.
Besides, at this point, they would have to be especially careful to keep her in a good mood, just when everything was hanging in the balance.
Chapter 37
Meanwhile, Aileen, in Paris, at the end of a month, was, as all her new friends declared, “a different person!”
Twenty pounds lighter; her color, her eyes, as well as her mood brighter; her hair arranged a la chanticleer, as Sarah Schimmel described it; her gowns designed by M. Richard, her shoes by M. Kraussmeier, all as Tollifer had planned.
She had achieved a real friendship with Madame Rezstadt, and the sheik, though his attentions were a little bothersome, was an amusing individual.
He seemed to like her for herself alone; in fact, seemed bent on developing an affair with her.
But that costume! White, and of the finest silk and wool, with a white silk cord binding it at his waist.
And his oily, savage-looking black hair!
And the small silver rings in his ears!
And long, thin, pointed and upward-curling red leather slippers on his feet, which were certainly not small.
And that hawklike nose and dark piercing eyes!
When with him, one became part of a show, gazed at by all.
And if she entertained him alone, she spent most of the time trying to avoid his caresses.
“Now, please, Ibrihim,” she would say. “Don’t forget, I’m married, and in love with my husband.
I like you, I really do.
But you mustn’t be begging me to do what I don’t want to do, because I won’t, and if you keep on, I won’t see you at all.”
“But, you see,” he insisted, in quite good English, “we have so mooch in common.
You like to play, and so do I.
We like to talk, ride, gamble, play ze races a little.
But still, you are like me, sober, not so . . . so . . .”
“Flighty?” interjected Aileen.
“What you mean, ‘flighty’?” he inquired.
“Oh, I don’t know.” She felt as though she were talking to a child.
“Fussy, jumpy.” She waved her hands to indicate instability, mental as well as emotional.
“So? So?
Ha, ha!
Flighty!
It is so!
I understan’.
You are not flighty!
Gudd!
So I like you, mooch.
Ha, ha! Very mooch.
And me?
You like me—the Sheik Ibrihim?”
Aileen laughed.
“Yes, I do,” she said.
“Of course, I think you drink too much.
And I think you are anything but a good man—cruel and selfish and a lot of things. But I like you just the same, and . . .”
“Tchk, tchk,” clucked the sheik.
“That is not mooch for a man like me.
If I do not love, I do not sleep.”
“Oh, stop being silly!” exclaimed Aileen.
“Do go over there and fix yourself a drink. And then go away and come back tonight and take me to dinner.
I’d like to go to that Mr. Sabinal’s place again.”
And so Aileen’s days were passing agreeably enough.