'Name? said Margot.
'Pompilia de la Conradine.
Margot wrote it down.
'Real name?
'Bessy Brown.
'Age?
'Twenty‑two.
'Real age?
'Twenty‑two.
'Experience?
'I was at Mrs Rosenbaum's, in Jermyn Street, for two years, mum.
'Well, Bessy, I'll see what I can do for you. Why did you leave Mrs Rosenbaum's?
'She said the gentlemen liked a change.
'I'll just ask her. Margot took up the telephone, which was held by a boxing‑glove. 'Is that Mrs Rosenbaum? This is Latin‑American Entertainments, Ltd speaking. Can you tell me about Miss de la Conradine?… Oh, that was the reason she left you? Thank you so much! I rather thought that might be it. She rang off. 'Sorry, Bessy; nothing for you just at present.
She pressed the bell, which was in the eye of a salmon trout, and another young lady was shown in.
'Name?
'Jane Grimes.
'Who sent you to me?
'The gentleman at Cardiff. He gave me this to give you. She produced a crumpled envelope and handed it across the table. Margot read the note. 'Yes, I see. So you're new to the business, Jane?
'Like a babe unborn, mum.
'But you married?
'Yes, mum, but it was in the war, and he was very drunk.
'Where's your husband?
'Dead, so they do say.
'That's excellent, Jane. You're just the sort we want. How soon can you sail?
'How soon would you be wanting me to?
'Well, there's a vacancy in Rio I'm filling at the end of the week. I'm sending our two very nice girls. Would you like to be going with them?
'Yes, mum, very pleased, I'm sure.
'D'you want any money in advance?
'Well, I could do with a bit to send my dad if you could spare it.
Margot took some notes from a drawer, counted them, and made out the receipt.
'Sign this, will you? I've got your address. I'll send you your tickets in a day or so. How are you off for clothes?
'Well, I've got a fine silk dress, but it's at Cardiff with the other things. The gentleman said I'd be getting some new clothes, perhaps.
'Yes, quite right. I'll make a note of that. The arrangement we generally make is that our agent chooses the clothes and you pay for them out of your salary in instalments.
Mrs Grimes went out, and another girl took her place.
By luncheon‑time Margot Beste‑Chetwynde was tired. 'Thank heavens, that's the last of them, she said. 'Were you terribly bored, my angel?
'Margot, you're wonderful. You ought to have been an empress.
'Don't say that you were a Christian slave, dearest.
'It never occurred to me, said Paul.
'There's a young man just like your friend Potts on the other side of the street, said Margot at the window. 'And my dear, he's picked up the last of those poor girls, the one who wanted to take her children and her brother with her.
'Then it can't be Potts, said Paul lazily. 'I say, Margot, there was one thing I couldn't understand. Why was it that the less experience those chorus‑girls had, the more you seemed to want them? You offered much higher wages to the ones who said they'd never had a job before.
'Did I, darling? I expect it was because I feel so absurdly happy.
At the time this seemed quite a reasonable explanation, but, thinking the matter over, Paul had to admit to himself that there had been nothing noticeably light‑hearted in Margot's conduct of her business.
'Let's have luncheon out to‑day, said Margot. 'I'm tired of this house.
They walked across Berkeley Square together in the sunshine. A footman in livery stood on the steps of one of the houses. A hatter's van, emblazoned with the royal arms, trotted past them on Hay Hill, two cockaded figures upright upon the box. A very great lady, bolstered up in an old‑fashioned landaulette, bowed to Margot with an inclination she had surely learned in the Court of the Prince Consort. All Mayfair seemed to throb with the heart of Mr Arlen.
Philbrick sat at the next table at the Maison Basque eating the bitter little strawberries which are so cheap in Provence and so very expensive in Dover Street.
'Do come and see me some time, he said. 'I'm living up the street at Batts's.
'I hear you're buying Llanabba, said Paul.
'Well, I thought of it, said Philbrick. 'But I'm afraid it's too far away, really.
'The police came for you soon after you left, said Paul.
'They're bound to get me some time, said Philbrick. 'But thanks for the tip all the same! By the way, you might warn your fiancée that they'll be after her soon, if she's not careful. That League of Nations Committee is getting busy at last.
'I haven't the least idea what you mean, said Paul, and returned to his table.
'Obviously the poor man's dotty, said Margot when he told her of the conversation.
CHAPTER VI A Hitch in the Wedding Preparations
Meanwhile half the shops in London were engaged on the wedding preparations. Paul asked Potts to be his best man, but a letter from Geneva declined the invitation. In other circumstances this might have caused him embarrassment, but during the past fortnight Paul had received so many letters and invitations from people he barely remembered meeting that his only difficulty in filling his place was the fear of offending any of his affectionate new friends. Eventually he chose Sir Alastair Digby‑Vane‑Trumpington, because he felt that, how ever indirectly, he owed him a great deal of his present good fortune. Sir Alastair readily accepted, at the same time borrowing the money for a new tall hat, his only one having come to grief a few nights earlier.
A letter from Onslow Square, which Paul left unanswered, plainly intimated that Paul's guardian's daughter would take it as a personal slight, and as a severe blow to her social advancement, if she were not chosen as one of the bridesmaids.
For some reason or other, Paul's marriage seemed to inspire the public as being particularly romantic. Perhaps they admired the enterprise and gallantry with which Margot, after ten years of widowhood, voluntarily exposed herself to a repetition of the hundred and one horrors of a fashionable wedding, or perhaps Paul's sudden elevation from schoolmaster to millionaire struck a still vibrant chord of optimism in each of them, so that they said to themselves over their ledgers and typewriters: 'It may be me next time. Whatever the reason, the wedding was certainly an unparalleled success among the lower orders. Inflamed by the popular Press, a large crowd assembled outside St Margaret's on the eve of the ceremony equipped, as for a first night, with collapsible chairs, sandwiches, and spirit stoves, while by half past two, in spite of heavy rain, it had swollen to such dimensions that the police were forced to make several batoncharges and many guests were crushed almost to death in their attempts to reach the doors, and the route down which Margot had to drive was lined as for a funeral with weeping and hysterical women.
Society was less certain in its approval, and Lady Circumference, for one, sighed for the early nineties, when Edward Prince of Wales, at the head of ton, might have given authoritative condemnation to this ostentatious second marriage.
'It's maddenin' Tangent having died just at this time, she said. 'People may think that that's my reason for refusin'. I can't imagine that anyone will go.
'I hear your nephew Alastair Trumpington is the best man, said Lady Vanburgh.
'You seem to be as well informed as my chiropodist, said Lady Circumference with unusual felicity, and all Lowndes Square shook at her departure.
In the unconverted mewses of Mayfair and the upper rooms of Shepherd's Market and North Audley Street, where fashionable bachelors lurk disconsolately on their evenings at home, there was open lamentation at the prey that had been allowed to slip through their elegantly gloved fingers, while more than one popular dancing man inquired anxiously at his bank to learn whether his month's remittance had been paid in as usual. But Margot remained loyal to all her old obligations, and invitations to her wedding‑reception were accepted by whole bevies of young men who made it their boast that they never went out except to a square meal, while little Davy Lennox, who for three years had never been known to give anyone a 'complimentary sitting', took two eloquent photographs of the back of her head and one of the reflection of her hands in a bowl of ink.