Old Sinners Never Die Read Online Free PDF

than honourable for your doing it, Miss Allan.” He cleared his throat. Something there was a bit thick.
    “General Jarvis, you dear!”
    With that, she flitted away from him. She was blonde—something else assumed honourably he thought, looking after her. Her walk reminded him of a mermaid, not altogether ridiculously, for her dress was sequined and snug to the toes. She was neatly put together entirely he thought, and long enough ago that he need not coddle his conscience should the opportunity for other coddling present itself. Realizing that his eyes were trailing across the room after her, he pulled himself up and glanced about in time to catch a look of austere disapproval from—of all people—the young pup, Leo. The disconcerting thought then occurred to him: she might just possibly be Leo’s mother.
    At that moment the Latin American ambassador came out of the study, and across the room he and Montaigne discovered one another, and with loud acclaims broke up everybody else’s conversation. They met and embraced, and immediately fell to reminiscences about Paris, the Riviera and Capri. There was something mesmeric about it all the same, something of an old enchantment that drew almost everyone in the room to them. Even Katz the musician, lounging at the study door, was caught up in it, his pouched eyes dreamy, his mouth as slack as it was sometimes said his musicianship had gone of late. “ … And the night,” Montaigne was saying, “I couldn’t find a stitch to put on when somebody turned in the fire alarm … You see the dilemma, of course …” (This remark was an aside to Mrs. Chatterton. The General got the feeling that some people there had heard it before and were encouraging its retelling.) “ … The question was whether to go down on or in the bed sheets.”
    “And what did you do?”
    “Well, as a matter of fact, I took a pillowcase, and tore two holes in the seam for my legs, ran the service bellcord through the hem at my waist, and went down on the sheets in that. The costume had a certain charm—with me in it. It became quite a fashion that season. You couldn’t buy a pillowcase in all Nice.”
    “Ah, Nice,” said the opera singer. “I know a lovely ballad—in French (this to the host), so don’t be alarmed. If Joshua would bring me a drink I might sing it.” She cast her eyes on the violinist. “Dear Josh.”
    If he had a drink himself, the General thought, he might listen. Going in quest of it, however, he found Miss Allan.
    “I’ll just bet you’ve had some wonderful experiences yourself, General.”
    “A few more, I dare say, than that young man,” he said, with as much modesty as he could manage.
    “Are you what they call a field general?”
    “I beg pardon?”
    “What I mean is, were you in real danger—I mean from the enemy?”
    “And occasionally from my friends,” the General said. “Will you have a drink with me, Miss Allan?”
    “I’d love to, General. I’ve never known a real military man of rank. My last army friend turned out to be a corporal when he put his uniform on.”
    “They’re the most dangerous of all.”
    “Corporals, you mean?”
    The General nodded. “Napoleon and Hitler.”
    “I never think of them as corporals.”
    “Most people don’t,” the General said, “but I’ve got a feeling they never got over thinking of it themselves.”
    Virginia giggled. “I know somebody just like that—going round acting like a general. I don’t mean you, honey, you don’t act like a general at all.”
    “Perhaps because I was never a corporal,” he said. “What will you drink, my dear?”
    A few minutes later dinner was announced.

6
    G ENERAL JARVIS SAT AT his hostess’ left, the ambassador at her right. To the ambassador’s right sat Senator Chisholm. It occurred to the General she was a ranking member of the Armed Services Committee. In his own best interests, a man in his position should curry favour with the old girl this night; he