Free Loser Takes All by Graham Greene Page B

hair tangled up with the ear-rings (I am sure she thought of her wisps and strands as ‘wanton locks’), and that smile fixed like a fossil. Watching her revolve I began to revolve too: I was caught into her orbit, and I became aware that here alone was the answer. I had to dine with a woman and in the whole Casino this was the only woman who would dine with me. As she swerved away from an attendant with a sweep of drapery and a slight clank, clank from her evening bag where I supposed she had stowed her hundred-franc tokens, I touched her hand, ‘Dear lady,’ I said – the phrase astonished me: it was as though it had been placed on my tongue, and certainly it seemed to belong to the same period as the mauve evening dress, the magnificent shoulders. ‘Dear lady,’ I repeated with increasing astonishment (I almost expected a small white moustache to burgeon on my upper lip), ‘you will I trust excuse a stranger . . .’
    I think she must have gone in constant fear of the attendants because her instinctive ogle expanded with her relief at seeing me into a positive blaze of light: it flapped across the waste of her face like sheet lightning. ‘Oh, not a stranger,’ she said, and I was relieved to find that she was English and that at least I would not have to talk bad French throughout the evening. ‘I have been watching with such admiration your great good fortune.’ (She had indeed profited from it on several occasions.)
    â€˜I was wondering, dear lady,’ (the extraordinary phrase slipped out again) ‘if you would do me the honour of dining. I have no one with whom to celebrate my luck.’
    â€˜But, of course, colonel, it would be a great pleasure.’ At that I really put my hand up to my mouth to see if the moustache were there. We both seemed to have learnt parts in a play – I began to fear what the third act might hold. I noticed she was edging towards the restaurant of the Salle Privée , but all my snobbery revolted at dining there with so notorious a figure of fun. I said, ‘I thought perhaps – if we could take a little air – it’s such a beautiful evening, the heat of these rooms, some small exclusive place . . .’ I would have suggested a private room if I had not feared that my intentions might have been misunderstood and welcomed.
    â€˜Nothing would give me greater pleasure, colonel.’
    We swept out (there was no other word for it) and I prayed that Cary and her young man were safely at dinner in their cheap café; it would have been intolerable if she had seen me at that moment. The woman imposed unreality. I was persuaded that to the white moustache had now been added a collapsible opera hat and a scarlet lined cloak.
    I said, ‘A horse-cab, don’t you think, on a night so balmy . . .’
    â€˜Barmy, colonel?’
    â€˜Spelt with an L,’ I explained, but I don’t think she understood.
    When we were seated in the cab I appealed for her help. ‘I am really quite a stranger here. I have dined out so seldom. Where can we go that is quiet . . . and exclusive?’ I was determined that the place should be exclusive: if it excluded all the world but the two of us, I would be the less embarrassed.
    â€˜There is a small new restaurant – a club really, very comme il faut. It is called Orphée . Rather expensive, I fear, colonel.’
    â€˜Expense is no object.’ I gave the name to the driver and leant back. As she was sitting bolt upright I was able to shelter behind her bulk. I said, ‘When were you last in Cheltenham . . . ?’
    The devil was about us that night. Whatever I said had been written into my part. She replied promptly, ‘Dear Cheltenham . . . how did you discover . . . ?’
    â€˜Well, you know, a handsome woman catches one’s eye.’
    â€˜You live there too?’
    â€˜One