"We've had some of these jokers back in New York," she answered carelessly. "My husband was in the business."
It was a phrase she often used, in widely differing contexts; indeed, it was difficult to judge what Mr. Consolini's business had been, except that it had given him, and consequently her, an all-embracing knowledge of how things were organized. Once she had stopped Louis putting more money into the fruit-machines. "Those things are fixed—strictly for suckers," she told him. "My husband was in the business." Once she had asked him, when he was buying her some perfume, not to choose a certain brand. "It's the most god-awful stuff. They make it out of the trash from the stock-yards. My husband used to have the franchise." When Louis complained, like everyone else, about the band on board, she diagnosed the trouble in a single sentence. "Union rules," she said. "If you hire one player who can play, you have to take on two relatives who can't." Apparently her husband had been in that business too. On a later occasion, when they were discussing the immigration laws in America, and she had revealed an astonishing knowledge of permits, restrictions, evasions, and loopholes, Louis had asked her what her husband's line had actually been. "He was an agent," she answered. That was all.
It had been enough on that occasion, and it was enough also to make him suspect that Belle Consolini would not be an easy target. The thought did not worry him, but it had perhaps persuaded him to take the whole thing at a very even speed.
Now, enjoying their Cuba Libres, while the calypso singer sauntered back to the bandstand and the Calcutta customers applauded him, they relaxed and were happy. Louis thought idly that it might be tonight that he would make his move. He could not know that Belle Consolini had come to the same conclusion, from quite a different angle, at quite a different time.
It was a chance meeting, back on board, which precipitated the next and final stage. The time was two o'clock, and though it was too late to get a drink in the bar, they agreed that they were both wide awake and still wanted one. She invited him down to her cabin; the way there led past the library, where the lights were still on. Through the open doorway, they both saw Mrs. Stewart-Bates sitting reading—or, perhaps, pretending to read; for as they passed, the book was lowered, and Mrs. Stewart-Bates stared at them over its top, like a pale ghost doomed to stand sentinel for a thousand years.
Neither of them made any comment, though Louis found the encounter slightly unnerving. But when they reached her cabin, Belle Consolini, pouring him a drink, remarked:
"Your friend's up late."
It would have been silly to say anything except: "Yes."
Mrs. Consolini brought the drink over, and set it down by his side. Then she asked, without preamble:
"How much did you take her for?" And added, inevitably, over the beginning of his energetic protests: "It's O.K. My husband was in the business."
More than two hours passed before the subject was raised again; and when it was, it developed, swiftly and subtly, on a plane which seemed to place all the initiative in her hands. She even destroyed, in advance, the shock-element in his plans—the surprise he had not yet sprung.
"Of course I knew what was going on," said Belle Consolini. She lay back on the bed, her body relaxed, her eyes alight; it placed him at a disadvantage that she seemed to take this whole situation so completely for granted. "Who didn't know? You and Grace Stewart-Bates! What on earth would you have in common? She could pass for your mother! Of course she must have hired you, and I hope it was fun."
"It was fun, all right," he answered. He tried to give his voice an edge, preparing to make his own move. "And we had fun too, didn't we?"
"Certainly," said Belle Consolini. "That was the basic idea."
"How about it, then?"
"How about what?"
"Paying for it."
"Oh,that." She nodded as if there were nothing in this conversation she had not heard a hundred times before. "How much did Grace pay you?"
"Never mind about that. This is you and me. You'd better start talking."
She stared at him, calculating, not worrying at all about his altered manner. "You'll find a hundred-dollar bill in my bag," she said. "Help yourself."
"A hundred!" His voice, coming from the shadows outside the circle of the bedside lamp, was scornful. "You'd better think again. You want people to know about us?"
"Heavens, Louis, you've got some funny ideas! Of course they'll know about us, if we go on with it. What does it matter? What do you think people talk about, all day and all night?" She looked up at him, as if she were genuinely puzzled. "What's on your mind? How much do you want?"
"Nearer a thousand."
Now it was her turn to laugh. It had a lilt, a merry and musical sound which was infinitely disconcerting. But all she said was:
"For tonight? I think that's a little too high."
"It's not too high." This was all wrong, but try as he would, he couldn't seem to get back on the right track again. "It's what you're going to give me."
"I'll give you nothing of the sort." She might have been shopping for vegetables, with five stalls to choose from. "Look, my lad, which of us knows more about the going rates, you or me? My husband was—" she did not even need to complete the sentence. "I like you, Louis," she went on, "and I don't want to see you get into the wrong hands. I'll tell you what—I'll make it five hundred a week."
"A week! What the hell is this?"
"You know very well what it is. It's a deal, the kind of deal you're looking for." She lay back, entirely at her ease, as if the matter were beyond discussion or comment, except among foolish people who did not know what was good for them. "Five hundred a week, for as long as I choose. And you just stay in line, or the deal's off."
"What if I say no? What if I—"
"You won't say no, and you won't do anything silly, either." She looked at him, her eyes shrewd, her voice entirely firm. "I don't know what you put over on Grace, and I don't want to know, but I~am—not—Grace." She brought the four words out with complete authority; then she relaxed, and her tone became almost kindly. "This is just what you want, if you'd only work it out—a safe job, regular hours, let's call them fringe benefits, more money than you could earn any other way. Without throwing any compliments around, it's what we both want."
"You've got it all worked out, haven't you?" he said, between bitterness and relief.
"You bet I have!" For once, she said nothing about her husband, but it seemed improbable that the guiding principles of Mr. Consolini were far from her mind. She patted the covers, and drew them up a little round her shoulders. "Now hand me my cigarettes, there's a good boy."
"Anything else you'd like?" he asked, with an attempt at irony. It did not survive her answer.
"No," she said. "And you can get dressed now. I won't want you again tonight."
PART FOUR
"Enjoy long, thrill-packed days at sea on the way to your rendezvous at the Tavern of the Seas—Cape Town"
1
"Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live," said the Captain, "and is full of misery." He tried not to intone the words; however many times one had read it—especially during the war—it was a most moving service, dedicated always to the proposition that the man lying on the deck at one's feet, whether snug in a coffin, or sewn up in his hammock, or hidden under a flag, deserved only sincerity and sorrow. "He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay."