It was rather a grand party.
It was on that account she had asked him.
She thought it would please him to meet some of the people he had known only from their pictures.
She had realized already that he was a bit of a snob.
Well, that was all to the good; she could give him all the smart people he wanted.
For Julia was shrewd, and she knew very well that Tom was not in love with her.
To have an affair with her flattered his vanity.
He was a highly-sexed young man and enjoyed sexual exercise.
From hints, from stories that she had dragged out of him, she discovered that since he was seventeen he had had a great many women.
He loved the act rather than the person.
He looked upon it as the greatest lark in the world.
And she could understand why he had so much success.
There was something appealing in his slightness, his body was just skin and bone, that was why his clothes sat on him so well, and something charming in his clean freshness.
His shyness and his effrontery combined to make him irresistible.
It was strangely nattering for a woman to be treated as a little bit of fluff that you just tumbled on to a bed.
‘What he’s got, of course, is sex appeal.’
She knew that his good looks were due to his youth.
He would grow wizened as he grew older, dried up and haggard; that charming flush on his cheeks would turn into a purple glow and his delicate skin would go lined and sallow; but the feeling that what she loved in him would endure so short a time increased her tenderness.
She felt a strange compassion for him.
He had the high spirits of youth, and she lapped them up as a kitten laps up milk.
But he was not amusing.
Though he laughed when Julia said a funny thing he never said one himself.
She did not mind.
She found his dullness restful.
She never felt so light-hearted as in his company, and she could be brilliant enough for two.
People kept on telling Julia that she was looking ten years younger and that she had never acted better.
She knew it was true and she knew the reason.
But it behoved her to walk warily.
She must keep her head.
Charles Tamerley always said that what an actress needed was not intelligence, but sensibility, and he might be right; perhaps she wasn’t clever, but her feelings were alert and she trusted them.
They told her now that she must never tell Tom that she loved him.
She was careful to make it plain to him that she laid no claims on him and that he was free to do whatever he liked.
She took up the attitude that the whole thing was a bit of nonsense to which neither of them must attach importance.
But she left nothing undone to bind him to her.
He liked parties and she took him to parties.
She got Dolly and Charles Tamerley to ask him to luncheon.
He was fond of dancing and she got him cards for balls.
For his sake she would go to them herself for an hour, and she was conscious of the satisfaction he got out of seeing how much fuss people made of her.
She knew that he was dazzled by the great, and she introduced him to eminent persons.
Fortunately Michael took a fancy to him.
Michael liked to talk, and Tom was a good listener.
He was clever at his business.
One day Michael said to her:
‘Smart fellow, Tom.
He knows a lot about income-tax.
I believe he’s shown me a way of saving two or three hundred pounds on my next return.’
Michael, looking for new talent, often took him to the play in the evenings, either in London or the suburbs; they would fetch Julia after the performance, and the three of them supped together.
Now and then Michael asked Tom to play golf with him on Sundays and then if there was no party would bring him home to dinner.
‘Nice to have a young fellow like that around,’ he said. ‘It keeps one from growing rusty.’
Tom was very pleasant about the house.