“Well — er —” He appeared to hesitate. “Taking on a bit of a handful, isn’t it?”
“Oh, no, Simon. You get on so well with everybody. Of course,” she went on a little wistfully, “I do love giving parties, but you know what Jacob is — he just asks everybody that he can think of — and I have to do all the work. Do be a dear!”
Simon allowed himself to be led over. “Oh, Madame Karkoff, I want you to meet my cousin, Mr. Aron.” Simon’s hostess smiled a little unhappily. “He’s awfully interested in the theatre.”
“’Ow do you do, Meestaire Aron?” said Madame Karkoff, in a rich, deep, almost husky voice, as she lifted her fine chin and held out a long slender hand. “Come — sit ’ere by me.” With a quick gesture she made a pretence of drawing aside her dress.
Simon accepted the invitation, and produced his cigarette-case. She took one with a little laugh.
“I ’ave been dying for a cigarette,” she confessed. “Ah, sank you.” Almost before the cigarette had reached her scarlet lips Simon’s other hand had left his pocket, and the patent lighter in it flickered into flame. It was a much-practised little trick of his.
“So you are interested in the theatre, eh?” She regarded him curiously. “Tell me about the theatre, Meestaire Aron!”
Simon leant forward and laughed his little nervous laugh into the palm of his hand. “Fraid I can’t,” he chuckled. “Mind you, I’d love to be able to, but we haven’t got a theatre in England!”
“Ah! So you know that, do you?” A gleam of appreciation showed in her large dark eyes.
“Of course,” he nodded vigorously. “There is no theatre here in the sense that you know it; there are some people who try pretty hard, but they don’t get much encouragement — and they’ve got a lot to learn.”
He studied her thoughtfully, marvelling at her dark beauty. The dead-white skin, the narrow arched eyebrows; the rather flat face with high cheek-bones, relieved by the sensual scarlet mouth and slumbrous dark eyes. No one would have thought of her as other than a woman, although she was actually little more than a girl. He put her down as about twenty-five.
“You are a Jew — are you not?” she asked suddenly.
He laughed jerkily again, as he ran his finger down his prominent nose. “Of course. I couldn’t hide this, could I? And as a matter of fact I’ve no wish to try.”
She laughed delightedly, showing two rows of strong white, even teeth. “I ’ave of the Jewish blood myself,” she said then, serious again in a moment. “My grandmother — she was a Jewess. It is good; there is no art where there is not Jewish blood.”
Simon looked round the big lounge-hall. “Plenty of them here tonight,” he said. And indeed, although there were a fair number of Christians, the majority of the guests were obviously what Simon would have termed “our people”. He smiled and waved a greeting as he caught sight of his friend, Richard Eaton, who was one of the Christian minority.
“I would like champagne,” declared Madame Karkoff, suddenly — throwing back her dark head, and exhaling a cloud of cigarette-smoke. “Lots and lots of champagne!”
“All right.” Simon stood up. “It’ll be in the billiard-room, I expect.”
She made no attempt to rise. “Bring it to me ’ere,” she said with a little shrug of the shoulders.
“Ner.” He shook his head rapidly as he uttered the curious negative which he often used. It came of his saying “no” without troubling to close the lips of his full mouth. “Ner — you come with me, it’s so crowded here.”
For a moment her mouth went sullen as she looked at the slim figure, with its narrow stooping shoulders, that stood before her, then she rose languidly.
He piloted her through the crush to the buffet in the billiards-room. An obsequious waiter proffered two glasses; they might have held a fair-sized cocktail, but they were not Simon’s idea of glasses for champagne. He waved them aside quickly with one word — “tumblers!”
Two small tumblers were produced and filled by the waiter. As Simon handed one to Madame Valeria Petrovna Karkoff she smiled approval.
“They are meeserable — those little glasses for champagne, no good at all — all the same you are, ’ow do you say? ‘You are a one, ’ees it not? Chin-chin!”
Simon laughed, they finished another tumbler apiece before they left the billiards-room. “Come on,” he said. “I think Maliperi is going to sing.”
“Maliperi?” she exclaimed, opening wide her eyes. “Come then, why do we stay ’ere?” and gripping him impulsively by the hand she ran him down the long passage to the music-room at the back of the house.
They stood together in a corner while Maliperi sang, and marvelled at her art, although the magnificent voice that had filled so many opera houses was too great for the moderate-sized room, and a certain portion of its beauty lost.
“Let us ’ave more champagne,” said Valeria Petrovna, when it was over. “I feel I will enjoy myself tonight.”
Simon led the way back to the buffet, and very shortly two more tumblers stood before them. As they were about to drink, a big red-headed man put his hand familiarly on her shoulder, and spoke thickly, in what Simon could only imagine to be Russian.
She shook his hand off with an impatient gesture, and answered him sharply in the same tongue.
He brought his rather flabby, white face, with its short, flat nose, and small, hot eyes, down to the level of hers for a moment with a wicked look, and spoke again.
Her eyes lit with a sudden fire, and she almost spat the words back at him — so that her melodious, husky voice became quite harsh for a moment. He turned, and stared angrily in Simon’s face. With his great, broad shoulders, powerful jaw, and receding forehead, he reminded Simon of a gorilla; then with a sudden scowl he swung upon his heel and turned away.
“Who — er — is that?” Simon asked, curiously, although he knew already who the man must be.
She shrugged — smiling again in a moment. “Oh, that — that ees Nicolai Alexis — Kommissar Leshkin. We travel together, you know — ’e is a little drunk tonight, I think.”
After that they heard Capello play; the Maestro was in form and drew marvellous music from his cherished violin.
“Oh, it ’ees tears ’e makes me cry,” Valeria Petrovna exclaimed passionately after he had played one aria, and the gallant Simon found it difficult not to cry out with pain, as she unconsciously dug her sharp nails into his hand which she held between her own.
They returned to the buffet and drank more tumblers of champagne, then Simon suggested that she might like to powder her nose. She seemed surprised at the suggestion, but accepted it; actually it was Simon’s way of saying that he wanted to use the telephone, he also wanted a word with Richard Eaton.
He found his friend without difficulty — and led the way to a quiet corner. Richard Eaton was a young man of medium height. His dark hair was brushed straight back from a “widow’s peak”, grey eyes twinkled out of a tanned, clean-shaven, oval face; he had a most attractive smile. He smiled now at Simon. “You are hitting it up, my boy — who’s the lovely lady?”
Simon looked a trifle sheepish — “Madame Karkoff,” he mumbled. “She’s a Russian — Moscow Arts Theatre — nice, isn’t she? But, look here, where have you been all the week? I’ve been trying to get hold of you for days.”
“I’ve been staying with the Terences, down near Reading — he’s great fun — commanded a battalion of the Coldstream in the Chinese shemozzle. I’ve got my new plane down there — been trying it out.”