"I shall have to eat it all myself then," said Lena cheerfully.
"Don't you ever think of your figure?" Arrow asked with icy deliberation.
"The doctor said I must eat."
"Did he say you must eat bread and butter and potatoes and cream?"
"Yes. That's what I thought you meant when you said you had simple food."
"You'll get simply enormous," said Beatrice.
Lena laughed gaily.
"No, I shan't. You see, nothing ever makes me fat. I've always eaten everything I wanted to and it's never had the slightest effect on me."
The stony silence that followed this speech was only broken by the entrance of the butler.
"Mademoiselle est servie," he announced.
They talked the matter over late that night, after Lena had gone to bed, in Frank's room. During the evening they had been furiously cheerful, and they had chaffed one another with a friendliness that would have taken in the keenest observer. But now they dropped the mask. Beatrice was sullen. Arrow was spiteful and Frank was unmanned.
"It's not very nice for me to sit there and see her eat all the things I particularly like," said Beatrice plaintively.
"It's not very nice for any of us," Frank snapped back.
"You should never have asked her here," said Arrow.
"How was I to know?" cried Frank.
"I can't help thinking that if she really cared for her husband she would hardly eat so much," said Beatrice. "He's only been buried two months. I mean, I think you ought to show some respect for the dead."
"Why can't she eat the same as we do?" asked Arrow viciously. "She's a guest."
"Well, you heard what she said. The doctor told her she must eat."
"Then she ought to go to a sanatorium."
"It's more than flesh and blood can stand, Frank," moaned Beatrice.
"If I can stand it you can stand it."
"She's your cousin, she's not our cousin," said Arrow. "I'm not going to sit there for fourteen days and watch that woman make a hog of herself."
"It's so vulgar to attach all this importance to food," Frank boomed, and her voice was deeper than ever. "After all the only thing that counts really is spirit."
"Are you calling me vulgar, Frank?" asked Arrow with flashing eyes.
"No, of course she isn't," interrupted Beatrice.
"I wouldn't put it past you to go down in the kitchen when we're all in bed and have a good square meal on the sly."
Frank sprang to her feet.
"How dare you say that, Arrow! I'd never ask anybody to do what I'm not prepared to do myself. Have you known me all these years and do you think me capable of such a mean thing?"
"How is it you never take off any weight then?"
Frank gave a gasp and burst into a flood of tears. "What a cruel thing to say! I've lost pounds and pounds."
She wept like a child. Her vast body shook and great tears splashed on her mountainous bosom.
"Darling, I didn't mean it," cried Arrow.
She threw herself on her knees and enveloped what she could of Frank in her own plump arms. She wept and the mascara ran down her cheeks.
"D'you mean to say I don't look thinner?" Frank sobbed. "After all I've gone through."
"Yes, dear, of course you do," cried Arrow through her tears. "Everybody's noticed it."
Beatrice, though naturally of a placid disposition, began to cry gently. It was very pathetic. Indeed, it would have been a hard heart that failed to be moved by the sight of Frank, that lion-hearted woman, crying her eyes out. Presently, however, they dried their tears and had a little brandy and water, which every doctor had told them was the least fattening thing they could drink, and then they felt much better. They decided that Lena should have the nourishing food that had been ordered her and they made a solemn resolution not to let it disturb their equanimity. She was certainly a first-rate bridge player and after all it was only for a fortnight. They would do whatever they could to make her stay enjoyable. They kissed one another warmly and separated for the night feeling strangely uplifted. Nothing should interfere with the wonderful friendship that had brought so much happiness into their three lives.
But human nature is weak. You must not ask too much of it. They ate grilled fish while Lena ate macaroni sizzling with cheese and butter; they ate grilled cutlets and boiled spinach while Lena ate patidefoie gras; twice a week they ate hard-boiled eggs and raw tomatoes, while Lena ate peas swimming in cream and potatoes cooked in all sorts of delicious ways. The chef was a good chef and he leapt at the opportunity afforded him to send up one dish more rich, tasty and succulent than the other.
"Poor Jim," sighed Lena, thinking of her husband, "he loved French cooking."
The butler disclosed the fact that he could make half a dozen kinds of cocktail and Lena informed them that the doctor had recommended her to drink burgundy at luncheon and champagne at dinner. The three fat women persevered. They were gay, chatty and even hilarious (such is the natural gift that women have for deception) but Beatrice grew limp and forlorn, and Arrow's tender blue eyes acquired a steely glint. Frank's deep voice grew more raucous. It was when they played bridge that the strain showed itself. They had always been fond of talking over their hands, but their discussions had been friendly. Now a distinct bitterness crept in and sometimes one pointed out a mistake to another with quite unnecessary frankness. Discussion turned to argument and argument to altercation. Sometimes the session ended in angry silence. Once Frank accused Arrow of deliberately letting her down. Two or three times Beatrice, the softest of the three, was reduced to tears. On another occasion Arrow flung down her cards and swept out of the room in a pet. Their tempers were getting frayed. Lena was the peacemaker.
"I think it's such a pity to quarrel over bridge," she said. "After all, it's only a game."
It was all very well for her. She had had a square meal and half a bottle of champagne. Besides, she had phenomenal luck. She was winning all their money. The score was put down in a book after each session, and hers mounted up day after day with unfailing regularity. Was there no justice in the world? They began to hate one another. And though they hated her too they could not resist confiding in her. Each of them went to her separately and told her how detestable the others were. Arrow said she was sure it was bad for her to see so much of women so much older than herself. She had a good mind to sacrifice her share of the lease and go to Venice for the rest of the summer. Frank told Lena that with her masculine mind it was too much to expect that she could be satisfied with anyone so frivolous as Arrow and so frankly stupid as Beatrice.
"I must have intellectual conversation," she boomed. "When you have a brain like mine you've got to consort with your intellectual equals."
Beatrice only wanted peace and quiet.
"Really I hate women," she said. "They're so unreliable; they're so malicious."
By the time Lena's fortnight drew to its close the three fat women were barely on speaking terms. They kept up appearances before Lena, but when she was not there made no pretences. They had got past quarrelling. They ignored one another, and when this was not possible treated each other with icy politeness.
Lena was going to stay with friends on the Italian Riviera and Frank saw her off by the same train as that by which she had arrived. She was taking away with her a lot of their money.
"I don't know how to thank you," she said, as she got into the carriage. "I've had a wonderful visit."