“Why not?
I should think you could work there as well as anywhere else.”
He sat back and looked at her.
If she had ever suspected the rotted old truth, the real reason for Nicole’s illness, she had certainly determined to deny it to herself, shoving it back in a dusty closet like one of the paintings she bought by mistake.
They continued the conversation in the Ulpia, where Collis Clay came over to their table and sat down, and a gifted guitar player thrummed and rumbled “Suona Fanfara Mia” in the cellar piled with wine casks.
“It’s possible that I was the wrong person for Nicole,” Dick said.
“Still she would probably have married some one of my type, some one she thought she could rely on—indefinitely.”
“You think she’d be happier with somebody else?” Baby thought aloud suddenly.
“Of course it could be arranged.”
Only as she saw Dick bend forward with helpless laughter did she realize the preposterousness of her remark.
“Oh, you understand,” she assured him. “Don’t think for a moment that we’re not grateful for all you’ve done.
And we know you’ve had a hard time—”
“For God’s sake,” he protested.
“If I didn’t love Nicole it might be different.”
“But you do love Nicole?” she demanded in alarm.
Collis was catching up with the conversation now and Dick switched it quickly:
“Suppose we talk about something else—about you, for instance.
Why don’t you get married?
We heard you were engaged to Lord Paley, the cousin of the—”
“Oh, no.”
She became coy and elusive.
“That was last year.”
“Why don’t you marry?” Dick insisted stubbornly.
“I don’t know.
One of the men I loved was killed in the war, and the other one threw me over.”
“Tell me about it.
Tell me about your private life, Baby, and your opinions.
You never do—we always talk about Nicole.”
“Both of them were Englishmen.
I don’t think there’s any higher type in the world than a first-rate Englishman, do you?
If there is I haven’t met him.
This man—oh, it’s a long story.
I hate long stories, don’t you?”
“And how!” said Collis.
“Why, no—I like them if they’re good.”
“That’s something you do so well, Dick.
You can keep a party moving by just a little sentence or a saying here and there.
I think that’s a wonderful talent.”
“It’s a trick,” he said gently.
That made three of her opinions he disagreed with.
“Of course I like formality—I like things to be just so, and on the grand scale.
I know you probably don’t but you must admit it’s a sign of solidity in me.”
Dick did not even bother to dissent from this.
“Of course I know people say, Baby Warren is racing around over Europe, chasing one novelty after another, and missing the best things in life, but I think on the contrary that I’m one of the few people who really go after the best things.
I’ve known the most interesting people of my time.”
Her voice blurred with the tinny drumming of another guitar number, but she called over it,
“I’ve made very few big mistakes—”
“—Only the very big ones, Baby.”
She had caught something facetious in his eye and she changed the subject.
It seemed impossible for them to hold anything in common.