Bond 01 - Casino Royale Read Online Free PDF Page B

which made them seem two separate people rather than a couple. Bond waited for them to come through the street door into the bar, but for appearances’ sake continued to stare out of the window at the passers-by.
    ‘But surely it is Monsieur Bond?’ Mathis’s voice behind him was full of surprised delight. Bond, appropriately flustered, rose to his feet. ‘Can it be that you are alone? Are you awaiting someone? May I present my colleague, Mademoiselle Lynd? My dear, this is the gentleman from Jamaica with whom I had the pleasure of doing business this morning.’
    Bond inclined himself with a reserved friendliness. ‘It would be a great pleasure,’ he addressed himself to the girl. ‘I am alone. Would you both care to join me?’ He pulled out a chair and while they sat down he beckoned to a waiter and despite Mathis’s expostulations insisted on ordering the drinks – a ‘fine à l’eau’ for Mathis and a ‘bacardi’ for the girl.
    Mathis and Bond exchanged cheerful talk about the fine weather and the prospects of a revival in the fortunes of Royale-les-Eaux. The girl sat silent. She accepted one of Bond’s cigarettes, examined it and then smoked it appreciatively and without affectation, drawing the smoke deeply into her lungs with a little sigh and then exhaling it casually through her lips and nostrils. Her movements were economical and precise with no trace of self-consciousness.
    Bond felt her presence strongly. While he and Mathis talked, he turned from time to time towards her, politely including her in the conversation, but adding up the impressions recorded by each glance.
    Her hair was very black and she wore it cut square and low on the nape of the neck, framing her face to below the clear and beautiful line of her jaw. Although it was heavy and moved with the movements of her head, she did not constantly pat it back into place, but let it alone. Her eyes were wide apart and deep blue and they gazed candidly back at Bond with a touch of ironical disinterest which, to his annoyance, he found he would like to shatter, roughly. Her skin was lightly suntanned and bore no trace of make-up except on her mouth which was wide and sensual. Her bare arms and hands had a quality of repose and the general impression of restraint in her appearance and movements was carried even to her finger-nails which were unpainted and cut short. Round her neck she wore a plain gold chain of wide flat links and on the fourth finger of the right hand a broad topaz ring. Her medium-length dress was of grey ‘soie sauvage’ with a square-cut bodice, lasciviously tight across her fine breasts. The skirt was closely pleated and flowered down from a narrow, but not a thin, waist. She wore a three-inch, hand-stitched black belt. A hand-stitched black ‘sabretache’ rested on the chair beside her, together with a wide cartwheel hat of gold straw, its crown encircled by a thin black velvet ribbon which tied at the back in a short bow. Her shoes were square-toed of plain black leather.
    Bond was excited by her beauty and intrigued by her composure. The prospect of working with her stimulated him. At the same time he felt a vague disquiet. On an impulse he touched wood.
    Mathis had noticed Bond’s preoccupation. After a time he rose.
    ‘Forgive me,’ he said to the girl, ‘while I telephone to the Dubernes. I must arrange my rendezvous for dinner tonight. Are you sure you won’t mind being left to your own devices this evening?’
    She shook her head.
    Bond took the cue and, as Mathis crossed the room to the telephone booth beside the bar, he said: ‘If you are going to be alone tonight, would you care to have dinner with me?’
    She smiled with the first hint of conspiracy she had shown. ‘I would like to very much,’ she said, ‘and then perhaps you would chaperone me to the Casino where Monsieur Mathis tells me you are very much at home. Perhaps I will bring you luck.’
    With Mathis gone, her attitude towards him showed