It must have been about twelve o’clock when she found him standing beside the table where the scotch was. “Hello, Sam,” said Rodney Cathcart. “How’s every little thing?” “We must go now, the poor child is tired in all this noise… Rodney, you must let Miss Dowling go now.” “O.K., pal,” said Rodney Cathcart and turned his back to pour himself another glass of scotch.
When Margo came back from getting her wraps she found Mr. Hardbein waiting for her in the vestibule. He bowed as he squeezed her hand. “Well, I don’t mind telling you, Miss Dowling, that you made a sensation. The girls are all asking what you use to dye your hair with.” A laugh rumbled down into his broad vest. “Would you come by my office? We might have a bite of lunch and talk things over a bit.” Margo gave a little shudder. “It’s sweet of you, Mr. Hardbein, but I never go to offices… I don’t understand business… You call us up, won’t you?”
When she got out to the colonial porch there was Rodney Cathcart sitting beside Margolies in the long white car. Margo grinned and got in between them as cool as if she’d expected to find Rodney Cathcart there all the while. The car drove off. Nobody said anything. She couldn’t tell where they were going, the avenues of palms and the strings of streetlamps all looked alike. They stopped at a big restaurant. “I thought we’d better have a little snack… You didn’t eat anything all evening,” Margolies said, giving her hand a squeeze as he helped her out of the car. “That’s the berries,” said Rodney Cathcart who’d hopped out first. “This dawncing makes a guy beastly ’ungry.”
The headwaiter bowed almost to the ground and led them through the restaurant full of eyes to a table that had been reserved for them on the edge of the dancefloor. Margolies ate shreddedwheat biscuits and milk, Rodney Cathcart ate a steak and Margo took on the end of her fork a few pieces of a lobsterpatty. “A blighter needs a drink after that,” grumbled Rodney Cathcart, pushing back his plate after polishing off the last fried potato. Margolies raised two fingers. “Here it is forbidden… How silly we are in this country… How silly they are.” He rolled his eyes towards Margo. She caught a wink in time to make it just a twitch of the eyelid and gave him that slow stopped smile he’d made such a fuss over at Palm Springs. Margolies got to his feet. “Come, Margo darling… I have something to show you.” As she and Rodney Cathcart followed him out across the red carpet she could feel ripples of excitement go through the people in the restaurant the way she’d felt it when she went places in Miami after Charley Anderson had been killed.
Margolies drove them to a big creamcolored apartmenthouse. They went up in an elevator. He opened a door with a latchkey and ushered them in. “This” he said, “is my little bachelor flat.”
It was a big dark room with a balcony at the end hung with embroideries. The walls were covered with all kinds of oilpaintings each lit by a little overhead light of its own. There were oriental rugs piled one on the other on the floor and couches round the walls covered with zebra and lion skins. “Oh, what a wonderful place,” said Margo. Margolies turned to her, smiling. “A bit baronial, eh? The sort of thing you’re accustomed to see in the castle of a Castilian grandee.” “Absolutely,” said Margo. Rodney Cathcart lay down full length on one of the couches. “Say, Sam old top,” he said, “have you got any of that good Canadian ale? ’Ow about a little Guinness in it?”
Margolies went out into a pantry and the swinging door closed behind him. Margo roamed around looking at the brightcolored pictures and the shelves of wriggling Chinese figures. It made her feel spooky.
“Oh, I say,” Rodney Cathcart called from the couch. “Come over here, Margo… I like you… You’ve got to call me Si… My friends call me that. It’s more American.” “All right by me” said Margo, sauntering towards the couch. Rodney Cathcart put out his hand. “Put it there, pal,” he said. When she put her hand in his he grabbed it and tried to pull her towards him on the couch. “Wouldn’t you like to kiss me, Margo?” He had a terrific grip. She could feel how strong he was.
Margolies came back with a tray with bottles and glasses and set it on an ebony stand near the couch. “This is where I do my work,” he said. “Genius is helpless without the proper environment… Sit there.” He pointed to the couch where Cathcart was lying. “I shot that lion myself… Excuse me a moment.” He went up the stairs to the balcony and a light went on up there. Then a door closed and the light was cut off. The only light in the room was over the pictures. Rodney Cathcart sat up on the edge of the couch. “For crissake, sister, drink something…” Margo started to titter. “All right, Si, you can give me a spot of gin,” she said and sat down beside him on the couch.
He was attractive. She found herself letting him kiss her but right away his hand was working up her leg and she had to get up and walk over to the other side of the room to look at the pictures again. “Oh, don’t be silly,” he sighed, letting himself drop back on the couch.
There was no sound from upstairs. Margo began to get the jeebies wondering what Margolies was doing up there. She went back to the couch to get herself another spot of gin and Rodney Cathcart jumped up all of a sudden and put his arms around her from behind and bit her ear. “Quit that caveman stuff” she said, standing still. She didn’t want to wrestle with him for fear he’d muss her dress. “That’s me,” he whispered in her ear. “I find you most exciting.”
Margolies was standing in front of them with some papers in his hand. Margo wondered how long he’d been there. Rodney Cathcart let himself drop back on the couch and closed his eyes. “Now sit down, Margo darling,” Margolies was saying in an even voice. “I want to tell you a story. See if it awakens anything in you.” Margo felt herself flushing. Behind her Rodney Cathcart was giving long deep breaths as if he were asleep.
“You are tired of the giddy whirl of the European capitals,” Margolies was saying. “You are the daughter of an old armyofficer. Your mother is dead. You go everywhere, dances, dinners, affairs. Proposals are made for your hand. Your father is a French or perhaps a Spanish general. His country calls him. He is to be sent to Africa to repel the barbarous Moors. He wants to leave you in a convent but you insist on going with him. You are following this?”
“Oh, yes,” said Margo eagerly. “She’d stow away on the ship to go with him to the war.”
“On the same boat there’s a young American collegeboy who has run away to join the foreign legion. We’ll get the reason later. That’ll be your friend Si. You meet… Everything is lovely between you. Your father is very ill. By this time you are in a mud fort besieged by natives, howling bloodthirsty savages. Si breaks through the blockade to get the medicine necessary to save your father’s life… On his return he’s arrested as a deserter. You rush to Tangier to get the American consul to intervene. Your father’s life is saved. You ride back just in time to beat the firingsquad. Si is an American citizen and is decorated. The general kisses him on both cheeks and hands his lovely daughter over into his strong arms… I don’t want you to talk about this now… Let it settle deep into your mind. Of course it’s only a rudimentary sketch. The story is nonsense but it affords the director certain opportunities. I can see you risking all, reputation, life itself to save the man you love. Now I’ll take you home… Look, Si’s asleep. He’s just an animal, a brute blond beast.”