“But wait’ll you hear by whom!”
“Oh God! Not those monsters!”
“They haven’t said anything. I just have a feeling they will.”
“Oh well, that’s absolutely out, of course.”
Port went into his room. “I wouldn’t worry about it either way. Nobody’s said anything. I got a long story from the son. He’s a mental case.”
“You know I’ll worry about it. You know how I hate train rides. And you come in calmly and say we may have an invitation to go in a car! You might at least have waited till morning and let me have a decent night’s sleep before having to make up my mind which of the two tortures I want.”
“Why don’t you begin your worrying once we’ve been asked?”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous!” she cried, jumping out of bed. She stood in the doorway, watching him undress. “Good night,” she said suddenly, and shut the door.
Things came about somewhat as Port had imagined they would. In the morning, as he was standing in the window wondering at the first clouds he had seen since mid-Atlantic, a knock came at the door; it was Eric Lyle, his face suffused and puffy from having just awakened.
“Good morning. I say, do forgive me if I’ve awakened you, but I’ve something rather important to talk about. May I come in?” He glanced about the room in a strangely surreptitious manner, his pale eyes darting swiftly from object to object. Port had the uncomfortable feeling that he should have put things away and closed all his luggage before letting him in.
“Have you had tea?” said Lyle.
“Yes, only it was coffee.”
“Aha!” He edged nearer to a valise, toyed with the straps. “You have some nice labels on your bags.” He lifted the leather tag with Port’s name and address on it. “Now I see your name. Mr. Porter Moresby.” He crossed the room. “You must forgive me if I snoop. Luggage always fascinates me. May I sit down? Now, look, Mr. Moresby. That is you, isn’t it? I’ve been talking at some length with Mother and she agrees with me that it would be much pleasanter for you and Mrs. Moresby—I suppose that’s the lady you were with last night—” he paused.
“Yes,” said Port.
“—if you both came along with us to Boussif. It’s only five hours by car, and the train ride takes ages; something like eleven hours, if I remember. And eleven hours of utter hell. Since the war the trains are completely impossible, you know. We think—”
Port interrupted him. “No, no. We couldn’t put you out to that extent. No, no.”
“Yes, yes,” said Lyle archly.
“Besides, we’re three, you know.”
“Ah, yes, of course,” said Lyle in a vague voice. “Your friend couldn’t come along on the train, I suppose?”
“I don’t think he’d be very happy with the arrangement. Anyway, we couldn’t very well go off and leave him.”
“I see. That’s a shame. We can scarcely take him along, with all the luggage there’d be, you know.” He rose, looked at Port with his head on one side like a bird listening for a worm, and said: “Come along with us; do. You can manage it, I know.” He went to the door, opened it, and leaned through toward Port, standing on tiptoe. “I’ll tell you what. You come by and let me know in an hour. Fifty-three. And I do hope your decision is favorable.” Smiling, and letting his gaze wander once more around the room, he shut the door.
Kit literally had not slept at all during the night; at daybreak she had dozed off, but her sleep was troubled. She was not in a receptive mood when Port rapped loudly on the communicating door and opened it immediately afterward. Straightway she sat up, holding the sheet high around her neck with her hand, and staring wildly. She relaxed and fell back.
“What is it?”
“I’ve got to talk to you.”
“I’m so sleepy.”
“We have the invitation to drive to Boussif.”
Again she bobbed up, this time rubbing her eyes. He sat on the bed and kissed her shoulder absently. She drew back and looked at him. “From the monsters? Have you accepted?”
He wanted to say “Yes,” because that would have avoided a long discussion; the matter would have been settled for her as well as for him.
“Not yet.”
“Oh, you’ll have to refuse.”
“Why? It’ll be much more comfortable. And quicker. And certainly safer.”
“Are you trying to terrify me so I won’t budge out of the hotel?” She looked toward the window. “Why is it so dark out still? What time is it?”
“It’s cloudy today for some strange reason.”
She was silent; the haunted look came into her eyes.
“They won’t take Tunner,” said Port.
“Are you stark, raving mad?” she cried. “I wouldn’t dream of going without him. Not for a second!”
“Why not?” said Port, nettled. “He could get there all right on the train. I don’t know why we should lose a good ride just because he happens to be along. We don’t have to stick with him every damned minute, do we?”
“You don’t have to; no.”
“You mean you do?”
“I mean I wouldn’t consider leaving Tunner here and going off in a car with those two. She’s an hysterical old hag, and the boy—he’s a real criminal degenerate if I ever saw one. He gives me the creeps.”
“Oh, come on!” scoffed Port. “You dare use the word hysterical. My God! I wish you could see yourself this minute.”
“You do exactly what you like,” said Kit, lying back. “I’ll go on the train with Tunner.”
Port’s eyes narrowed. “Well, by God, you can go on the train with him, then. And I hope there’s a wreck!” He went into his room and dressed.
Kit rapped on the door. “Entrez,” said Tunner with his American accent. “Well, well, this is a surprise! What’s up? To what do I owe this unexpected visit?”
“Oh, nothing in particular,” she said, surveying him with a vague distaste which she hoped she managed to conceal. “You and I’ve got to go alone to Boussif on the train. Port has an invitation to drive there with some friends.” She tried to keep her voice wholly inexpressive.
He looked mystified. “What’s all this? Say it again slowly. Friends?”
“That’s right. Some English woman and her son. They’ve asked him.”
Little by little his face began to beam. This was not false now, she noted. He was just incredibly slow in reacting.
“Well, well!” he said again, grinning.
“What a dolt he is,” she thought, observing the utter lack of inhibition in his behavior. (The blatantly normal always infuriated her.) “His emotional maneuvers all take place out in the open. Not a tree or a rock to hide behind.”
Aloud she said: “The train leaves at six and gets there at some God-forsaken hour of the morning. But they say it’s always late, and that’s good, for once.”
“So we’ll just go together, the two of us.”
“Port’ll be there long before, so he can get rooms for us. I’ve got to go now and find a beauty parlor, God forbid.”
“What do you need of that?” protested Tunner. “Let well enough alone. You can’t improve on nature.”
She had no patience with gallantry; nevertheless she smiled at him as she went out. “Because I’m a coward,” she thought. She was quite conscious of a desire to pit Tunner’s magic against Port’s, since Port had put a curse on the trip. And as she smiled she said, as if to nobody: “I think we can avoid the wreck.”
“Huh?”
“Oh, nothing, I’ll see you for lunch in the dining room at two.”
Tunner was the sort of person to whom it would occur only with difficulty that he might be being used. Because he was accustomed to imposing his will without meeting opposition, he had a highly developed and very male vanity which endeared him, strangely enough, to almost everyone. Doubtless the principal reason why he had been so eager to accompany Port and Kit on this trip was that with them as with no one else he felt a definite resistance to his unceasing attempts at moral domination, at which he was forced, when with them, to work much harder; thus unconsciously he was giving his personality the exercise it required. Kit and Port, on the other hand, both resented even the reduced degree to which they responded to his somewhat obvious charm, which was why neither one would admit to having encouraged him to come along with them. There was no small amount of shame involved where they were concerned, since both of them were conscious of all the acting and formula-following in his behavior, and yet to a certain degree both were willingly ensnared by it. Tunner himself was an essentially simple individual irresistibly attracted by whatever remained just beyond his intellectual grasp. Contenting himself with not quite being able to seize an idea was a habit he had acquired in adolescence, and it operated in him now with still greater force. If he could get on all sides of a thought, he concluded that it was an inferior one; there had to be an inaccessible part of it for his interest to be aroused. His attention, however, did not spur him to additional thought. On the contrary, it merely provided him with an emotional satisfaction vis-a-vis the idea, making it possible for him to relax and admire it at a distance. At the beginning of his friendship with Port and Kit he had been inclined to treat them with the careful deference he felt was due them, not as individuals, but as beings who dealt almost exclusively with ideas, sacred things. Their discouraging of this tactic had been so categorical that he had been obliged to adopt a new one, in using which he felt even less sure of himself. This consisted of gentle prods, ridicule so faint and unfocused that it always could be given a flattering turn if necessary, and the adoption of an attitude of amused, if slightly pained resignation, that made him feel like the father of a pair of impossibly spoiled prodigies.