The Spaniard came, gave her a glance in which there was no sign of recognition, he was in animated conversation with the woman on his arm, and walked on.
In a flash Julia understood that he was just as little anxious to see her as she was to see him.
The woman and the child were obviously his wife and daughter whom he had come down to Cannes to spend Easter with.
What a relief!
Now she could enjoy herself without fear.
But as she accompanied Dolly to the bar, Julia thought how disgusting men were.
You simply couldn’t trust them for a minute.
It was really disgraceful that a man with a charming wife and such a sweet little girl should be willing to pick up a woman in the train.
You would think they’d have some sense of decency.
But as time passed Julia’s indignation was mitigated, and she had often thought of the adventure since with a good deal of pleasure.
After all it had been fun.
Sometimes she allowed her reveries to run away with her and she went over in her fancy the incidents of that singular night.
He had been a most agreeable lover.
It would be something to look back on when she was an old woman.
It was the beard that had made such an impression on her, the odd feeling of it on her face and that slightly musty smell which was repulsive and yet strangely exciting.
For years she looked out for men with beards, and she had a feeling that if one of them made proposals to her she simply wouldn’t be able to resist him.
But few men wore beards any more, luckily for her because the sight made her go a little weak at the knees, and none of those that did ever made any advance to her.
She would have liked to know who the Spaniard was.
She saw him a day or two later playing chemin de fer at the Casino and asked two or three people if they knew him.
Nobody did, and he remained in her recollection, and in her bones, without a name.
It was an odd coincidence that she didn’t know the name either of the young man who had that afternoon behaved in so unexpected a manner.
It struck her as rather comic. ‘If I only knew beforehand that they were going to take liberties with me I’d at least ask for their cards.’
With this thought she fell happily asleep.
13.
SOME days passed, and one morning, while Julia was lying in bed reading a play, they rang through from the basement to ask if she would speak to Mr Fennell.
The name meant nothing to her and she was about to refuse when it occurred to her that it might be the young man of her adventure.
Her curiosity induced her to tell them to connect him.
She recognized his voice.
‘You promised to ring me up,’ he said.
‘I got tired of waiting, so I’ve rung you up instead.’
‘I’ve been terribly busy the last few days.’
‘When am I going to see you?’
‘As soon as I have a moment to spare.’
‘What about this afternoon?’
‘I’ve got a matin?e today.’
‘Come to tea after the matin?e.’
She smiled. (‘No, young feller-me-lad, you don’t catch me a second time like that.’)
‘I can’t possibly,’ she answered.
‘I always stay in my dressing-room and rest till the evening performance.’
‘Can’t I come and see you while you’re resting?’
She hesitated for an instant.
Perhaps the best thing would be to get him come; with Evie popping in and out and Miss Phillips due at seven, there would be no chance of any nonsense, and it would be a good opportunity to tell him, amiably, because he was really a sweet little thing, but firmly, that the incident of the other afternoon was to have no sequel.
With a few well-chosen words she would explain to him that it was quite unreasonable and that he must oblige her by erasing the episode from his memory.
‘All right.
Come at half-past five and I’ll give you a cup of tea.’
There was no part of her busy life that she enjoyed more than those three hours that she spent in her dressing-room between the afternoon and the evening performances.
The other members of the cast had gone away; and Evie was there to attend to her wants and the doorkeeper to guard her privacy.
Her dressing-room was like the cabin of a ship.
The world seemed a long way off, and she relished her seclusion.
She felt an enchanting freedom.