XXXI
THEY went to the club, round the corner, for luncheon. But as they walked towards it together, for the first time since they had come to know one another they found themselves at a loss for words. For Mame it was a new experience and a decidedly bitter one. Lady Violet was now coldly polite. The touch of ice was an omen. Her companion did not like this new aspect at all.
Everything had changed since Mame had tripped along to the post office, half an hour ago. The sky was different or what London is pleased to call the sky; the sound of traffic; the look of the passers-by; the shadows cast by the houses and by the trees across the road, all were different. A severe attack of cold feet had overtaken Miss Du Rance.
She felt like throwing herself under a bus. Her vein of fatalism mockingly assured her that such luck as she had had could not possibly last. There was bound to be a break. The dream was too good to be true. Yet it was maddening to feel that she had held every card in the game less than half an hour ago and that by an act of sheer folly she had simply cast them to the winds.
This was a bad moment. Back swung the pendulum.Her mood reacted from triumph to despair. After crabbing such luck as no girl of her sort ever had, she might find herself curled up on a County Council bench among the poor stiffs who slept nightly on the Thames Embankment. Instead of having the ball at her feet she had now a vision of ending up in the river.
In the course of a miserable luncheon these horrid thoughts tormented her. She couldn’t go back to poverty and inferior people. But all that she had, depended on the coldly polite girl opposite. And if, as now seemed almost certain, she was forced to cancel the contract she had just made with New York, Elmer Dobree would be furious. He, too, would never forgive her for being made to look a fool. Big interests stood behind him in this scheme, and if by her default he failed to put it through, his own position would be jeopardised. He might even lose his new job.
“Excuse me, honey.” Mame glanced at her friend across the private table. “I don’t want food just now. I think I’ll get out into the air.”
“Aren’t you well?” The detached tone was like a knife to Mame.
“No,” she gasped. “I’m feeling pretty low. I—I—” Not trusting herself to say more she got up abruptly and quitted the dining room.