In a large fluid but nervous handwriting, the following letter lay, read, as it were: Bertha still keeping her eye on it from a distance:
“Dear Bertha,—I am writing at the Gare St. Lazare, on my way to England. You have made things much easier for me in one way of course, far more difficult in another. Parenthetically, I may mention that the whimsical happenings between you and your absurd countryman in full moonlight are known to me. They were recounted with a wealth of detail that left nothing to the imagination, happily for my peculiar possessive sensitiveness, known to you. I don’t know whether that little red-headed bitch—the colour of Iscariot, so perhaps she is—is a friend of yours? Kreisler! I was offered an introduction to him the other day, which I refused. It seems he has introduced himself!
“Before, I had contemplated retiring to a little distance for the purpose of reflection. This last coup of yours necessitates a much further recul, withdrawal—a couple of hundred miles at least, I have judged. And as far as I can see I shall be some months—say ten—away. I am not wise enough to take your action au pied de la lettre;[153] nevertheless, you may consider yourself free as women go. What I mean is you need not trouble to restrain the exuberance of your exploits in future. (What rubbish!) Let them develop naturally, right up to fian?ailles, or elsewhere. I have a very German idea. Why should not girls have two or three fiancés? Not two or three husbands. But fiancé, especially nowadays, is an elastic term. Why shouldn’t fiancé take the place of husband? It is a very respectable word: a very respectable state. But my idea was that of a club, organized around the fiancée. You seem to me cut out for such a club. A man might spend quite a pleasant time with the other fiancés. A fine science of women would be developed, perhaps along Oriental lines a little. Then a man would remember the different clubs he had belonged to. Some very beautiful women might have a sort of University settled near them. To have belonged to one of these celebrated but ephemeral institutions would insure a man success with less illustrious queens. ‘He was a fiancé of Fr?ulein Stück’s, you know,’ would carry prestige. You have Germanized me in a horrible way! Anyhow, you may count on me should you think of starting a little institution of that sort. My address for the next few months will be 10 Waterford Street, London, W.C.—Yours,
“Sorbett.”
He spelt his name with two T’s because Bertha had never disciplined herself to suppress final consonants.
Bertha was in her little kitchen. It was near the front door. Next to it was her studio or salon, then bedroom: along a passage at right angles the rooms rented by Clara Goenthner, her friend.
The letter had been laid on the table, by the side of which stood the large gas-stove, like a safe, its gas stars, on top, blasting away luridly at pans and saucepans with Bertha’s breakfast. While busying herself with eggs and coffee, she gazed over her arm[154] reflectively at the letter. It was a couple of inches too far away for her to be able to read it.
The postman had come ten minutes before. It was now four days after the dance, and since she had last seen Tarr. She had “felt” he would come on that particular morning. The belief in woman’s intuition is not confined, of course, to men. “Could he have heard anything of the Kreisler incident?” she had asked herself. The possibility of this was terrifying. But perhaps it would be as well if he had. It might at any future time crop up. And what things had happened when other older things had come to light suddenly! She would tell him if he had not already heard. He should hear it from her. The great boulevard sacrifice of the other night had appeared folly, long ago. But peculiarly free from any form of spite—she did not feel unkindly towards Kreisler.
So Sorbert was expected to breakfast, on the authority of her intuition. Bread was being fried in fat. What manner of man would appear, how far renseigné—or if not informed, still all their other difficulties were there inevitably enough? Experience, however, suggested such breakfast as pleased him. Could fried toast and honey play a part in such troubles? Ah, yes. Troubles often reduced themselves to fried bread and honey: they could sow troubles, why not help to quell troubles? But she had had a second intuition that he knew. Not knowing how stormy their interview might be she neglected no minute precautions—and these were the touching ones—any more than the sailor would neglect to stow away even the smallest of his sails, I suppose, at the sulky approach of a simoom. The simoom, however, had left her becalmed and taken the train for Dieppe instead of coming in her direction.