The Gap in the Curtain Read Free

phrases of bibliophile’s jargon into his simple tale. He felt that he had found his life’s work, and was quite happy about it.
    The trouble was Pamela Brune. It appeared that he was deeply in love, and that she was toying with his young heart. “There’s a strong lot of entries,” he explained, “and Charles Ottery has been the favourite up till now. But she seems a bit off Charles, and . . . and . . . anyhow, I’m going to try my luck. I wangled an invitation here for that very purpose. I say, you know—you’re her godfather, aren’t you? If you could put in a kind word . . .”
    But my unreceptive eye must have warned Reggie that I was stony soil. He had another glass of port, and sighed.
    I intended to go to bed as soon as I decently could. I was not sleepy, but I was seeing things with the confusion of a drowsy man. As I followed my host across the hall, where someone had started a gramophone, I seemed more than ever to be in a phantasmal world. The drawing room, with the delicate fluted pilasters in its panelling and the Sir Joshuas and Romneys between them, swam in a green dusk, which was partly the afterglow through the uncurtained windows and partly the shading of the electric lamps. A four at bridge had been made up, and the young people were drifting back towards the music. Lady Nantley beckoned me from a sofa. I could see her eyes appraising my face and disapproving of it, but she was too tactful to tell me that I looked ill.
    â€œI heard that you were to be here, Ned,” she said, “and I was very glad. Your goddaughter is rather a handful just now, and I wanted your advice.”
    â€œWhat’s wrong?” I asked. “She’s looking uncommonly pretty.” I caught a glimpse of Pamela patting her hair as she passed a mirror, slim and swift as a dryad.
    â€œShe’s uncommonly perverse. You know that she has been having an affair with Charles Ottery ever since Christmas at Wirlesdon. I love Charles, and Tom and I were delighted. Everything most suitable—the right age, enough money, chance of a career, the same friends. There’s no doubt that Charles adores her, and till the other day I thought that she was coming to adore Charles. But now she has suddenly gone off at a tangent, and has taken to snubbing and neglecting him. She says that he’s too good for her, and that his perfections choke her—doesn’t want to play second fiddle to an Admirable Crichton—wants to shape her own life—all the rubbish that young people talk nowadays.”
    Mollie’s charming eyes were full of real distress, and she put an appealing hand on my arm.
    â€œShe likes you, Ned, and believes in you. Couldn’t you put a little sense into her head?”
    I wanted to say that I was feeling like a ghost from another sphere, and that it was no good asking a tenuous spectre to meddle with the affairs of warm flesh and blood. But I was spared the trouble of answering by the appearance of Lady Flambard.
    â€œForgive me, Mollie dear,” she said, “but I must carry him off. I’ll bring him back to you presently.”
    She led me to a young man who was standing near the door. “Bob,” she said, “this is Sir Edward Leithen. I’ve been longing for you two to meet.”
    â€œSo have I,” said the other, and we shook hands. Now that I saw Goodeve fairly, I was even more impressed than by his profile as seen at dinner. He was a finely made man, and looked younger than his thirty-eight years. He was very dark, but not in the least swarthy; there were lights in his hair which suggested that he might have been a blond child, and his skin was a clear brown, as if the blood ran strongly and cleanly under it. What I liked about him was his smile, which was at once engaging and natural, and a little shy. It took away any arrogance that might have lurked in the tight mouth and straight brows.
    â€œI came here to