stayed on, drinking one cognac after another at the bar, while it filled up, ebbed and flowed, with the mysterious rout and rabble of the night. He waited until four o’clock in the morning: neither Starwick nor Alec had appeared. He got into a taxi and was driven back across Paris to Montparnasse. When he got to the studio, the two women were still awake, waiting, and he gave them his disappointing news. Then he departed, promising to return at noon.
All through that day they waited: the apprehension of the two women was now painfully evident, and Ann spoke bluntly of calling in the police. Towards six o’clock that evening, while they were engaged in vigorous debate concerning their course of action, there were steps along the alley-way outside, and Starwick entered the studio, followed by the Frenchman, Alec.
Starwick was in excellent spirits, his eyes were clear, his ruddy face looked fresh, and had a healthy glow. In response to all their excited greetings and inquiries, he laughed gleefully, teasingly, and refused to answer. When they tried to find out from Alec where Starwick had been, he too smiled an engaging but malicious smile, shrugged his shoulders politely, and said: “I do not know, I s’ink he tells you if he v’ants—if not!” again he smiled, and shrugged politely. And this moody and secretive silence was never broken. Starwick never told them where he had been. Once or twice, during dinner, which was a hilarious one, he made casual and mysteriously hinting references to Brussels, but, in response to all of Elinor’s deft, ironic cross-examination, he only laughed his burbling laugh, and refused to answer.
And she, finally defeated, laughed suddenly, a laugh of rich astonishment, crying: “Perfectly insane, of course! But then, what did I tell you? It’s just the sort of thing that Frank would do!”
But, in spite of all her high light spirits, her gay swift laughter, her distinguished ease, there was in the woman’s eyes something the boy had never seen before: a horrible, baffled anguish of torment and frustration. And although her manner towards the Frenchman, Alec, was gracious, gay, and charming—although she now accepted him as “one of us,” and frequently said with warm enthusiasm that he was “a per-fectly swell person—I like him so much!” there was often something in her eyes when she looked at him that it was not good to see.
Alec was their guest, and Starwick’s constant companion, everywhere they went thereafter. And everywhere, in every way, he proved himself to be a droll, kind, courteous, witty and urbanely cynical person: a man of
