Free And Be Thy Love by Rose Burghley Page A

he talked of little restaurants tucked away near the Madeleine, and the Montparnasse district with its literary and artistic associations, that she grew a little cautious of displaying enthusiasm. And when he talked of “first-nights’’ at the theatres, and night-clubs that kept open until an hour in the morning when it seemed to her peculiar that people should still be seeking vicarious entertainment. Then he felt her withdraw into a kind of shell, and his eyes twinkled, and twinkled still more as he casually mentioned “mornings after”, and Armand making frequent threats to cut out that side of his life altogether, because it interfered with his work, and his work was the one thing that was really important to him these days.
    But he had not so far been strong enough to eschew the lighter side of life entirely, although there was no telling what he might do one of these days.
    “Armand is a little bit unpredictable,” he admitted to her once, when they were re-packing the picnic basket after doing more than justice to Monique’s feather-light pastries and macaroons, and the excellent coffee she had introduced into a thermos flask. “It is not always easy to understand him. Sometimes he is gay—without, you would say, a care in the world—and then,” with a little shrugging movement of his shoulders, “for no reason whatsoever he is down, deep down, in the doldrums! It is a little difficult to keep pace with his moods.”
    “Isn’t that because he is naturally temperamental? A writer would be temperamental, wouldn’t he?”
    “Would he? Or, rather, should he be?” He leaned on his elbow and watched her, while his cigarette burned away between his fingers, and his look seemed to her to be a little intense, as if he was interested in her reactions. “Does temperament excuse fits of very bad temper, impatience with everything and everybody, refusal to take anything but a cynical view of most people’s intentions, and a disinclination to believe that there is any real good in human nature? Does it excuse thinking contemptuously of his own success, which he does?”
    “I don’t know.” Her eyes were very large and rather round in the dimness of the wood, and their colour was a kind of misty violet. “But then I don’t know very much about successful people. Actually, I’ve never met any.”
    “Then you are fortunate, my child.”
    He ground out the end of his cigarette in the long grass, and then lighted another. She had noticed that he practically chain-smoked, and the tips of his supple fingers were stained with nicotine.
    “You—you see a good deal of the Comte, don’t you?” she suggested diffidently.
    “For my sins, I see a very great deal of him—a very great deal, yes!” he admitted.
    “And you would rather it was otherwise?”
    He shrugged.
    “I haven’t said so. He is David to my Jonathan, or vice versa. In any case, we couldn’t get on without one another.”
    “You mean that you help him—with ideas, or something of the sort—in his work? And that is why he shares the profits with you?”
    Amusement overspread his face, and his dark eyes grew a little mocking.
    “You do not altogether approve of my sharing those profits, do you? You think it would be far more to my credit if I made that bookshop of mine pay dividends! Or did some other honest job of work! Well, perhaps I will one day—if you think it necessary!” He leaned forward and possessed himself of one of her hands, turning the fingers back so that he could admire the delicate nails, and then staring rather hard at the soft palm. “And we will not talk about this de Marsac, for he is a dull subject of conversation, and there are other subjects that could be so much more interesting.”
    “Such as?” she heard herself enquiring, in almost a whisper.
    He went on staring at her palm,
    “Can’t you think of one that would enable us to be in some sort of accord? No criticism on either side, no doubts, no