Part 50 (1/2)
”You never did care to dance, did you?”
”No--” he shrugged, ”I used to mess about some.”
”And what do you do to amuse yourself in these days?”
”Nothing--much.”
”You must do _something_, Clive!”
”Oh, yes ... I travel,--go about.”
”Is that all?”
”That's about all.”
She had stepped aside to let the dancers pa.s.s; he moved with her.
She said in a low, even voice: ”Is it pleasant to be back, Clive?”
He nodded in silence.
”Nothing has changed very much since you went away. There's a new administration at the City Hall, a number of new sky-sc.r.a.pers in town; people danced the Tango day before yesterday, the Maxixe yesterday, the Miraflores to-day, the Orchid to-morrow. That's about all, Clive.”
And as he merely acquiesced in silence, she glanced up sideways at him, and remained watching this new, sun-browned, lean-visaged version of the boy she had first known and the boyish man who had gone out of her life four years before.
”Would you like to see Hafiz?” she asked.
He turned quickly toward her: ”Yes,” he said, the ghost of a smile lining the corners of his eyes.
”He's on my bed, asleep. Will you come?”
Slipping along the edges of the dancing floor and stepping daintily over the rolled rugs, she led the way through the pa.s.sage to her rose and ivory bedroom, Clive following.
Hafiz opened his eyes and looked across at them from the pillow, stood up, his back rounding into a furry arch; yawned, stretched first one hind leg and then the other, and finally stood, flexing his forepaws and uttering soft little mews of recognition and greeting.
”I wonder,” she said, smilingly, ”if you have any idea how much Hafiz has meant to me?”
He made no reply; but his face grew sombre and he laid a lean, muscular hand on the cat's head.
Neither spoke again for a little while. Finally his hand fell from the appreciative head of Hafiz, dropping inert by his side, and he stood looking at the floor. Then there was the slightest touch on his arm, and he turned to go; but she did not move; and they confronted each other, alone, and after many years.
Suddenly she stretched out both hands, looking him full in the eyes, her own brilliant with tears:
”I've got you back--haven't I?” she said unsteadily. But he could not speak, and stood savagely controlling his quivering lip with his teeth.
”I just want you as I had you, Clive--my first boy friend--who turned aside from the bright highway of life to speak to a ragged child.... I have had the boy; I have had the youth; I want the man, Clive,--honestly, in perfect innocence.
”Would you care what might be said of us--as long as we know our friends.h.i.+p is blameless? I am not taking you from _her_, am I? I am not taking anything away from her, am I?
”I have not always played squarely with men. I don't think it is possible. They have hoped for--various eventualities. I have not encouraged them; I have merely let them hope. Which is not square.