The Darts of Cupid: Stories Read Online Free PDF Page A

seen that the stranger wore a sky blue dress with inset panels of pleating, of the unfashionable and expensive kind favored by elderly and rich clergymen’s wives—a garment belying her youth and her tall, voluptuous figure. And glancing upward once more, I saw that she was a pretty blonde, with a tip-tilted nose in a long oval face. Her prettiness was of the kind that is entirely pleasing and entirely forgettable, and if she had appeared by the gate on the second evening without the hat, I might not have recognized her. Though standing alone, obviously waiting, and looking into space, she was smiling. I suspected that this was not so much due to happy thoughts as to her willingness to display her pretty teeth.
    "She’s come down from London," said Claudia. "That’s why he’s been flitting Londonward all this time. And now he’s brought her down here to share his bed and board. He’s left his hotel and moved into a flat. And she’s flung her bonnet over quite an expensive windmill, never you fear; the flat’s in a house in St. James’s Square—superb situation, high living and low thinking. The Merry Widow knows exactly what it cost, too, because she did some of his ordering for him. And the woman in the hat’s a lady, because she called him once over the telephone while he was in the Brigadier General’s office, and, you know how it is, two words are enough and you know where you are. Not like with the Yanks, where you never can tell from the way they speak. And she’s called Constance Ray. Mrs. But then, over that I wouldn’t put my hand into the fire. Altogether, if you ask me, apart from the Mrs., the name is too good to be true."
    "Sounds made up to me," said June.
    "Rather eccentric of him, bringing her down here. Coals to Newcastle," said Betty.
    "She is a Gainsborough type," I said.
    "Harken to Prescott-Clark, standing up for the Major," said Claudia.
    "Perhaps she’s an actress," said Betty. "What with that name, and not at all out of the top drawer, and it’s been the good old elocution lessons for her all the time."
    "Never you fear, we’ll find out," said Claudia. But they never did find out.
    For days, Sergeant Danielevski went about saying, "Have you seen the Major’s mistress? She’s got lovely big blue eyes," and he accompanied these words with a most suggestive mime, holding his cupped hands in front of his body and shaking them up and down as though weighing two outsize oranges. I joined in the laughter, experiencing a kind of relief, as one may feel relief when at last receiving the punishment with which one has been threatened for a long time.
    Once more, I could not master myself and made a remark to the Major. He called me to him one day and threw on his desk a stack of snapshots, facedown, with a gesture of contempt, as though after having started on a game of cards he had found himself holding a bad hand. "Look at them," he said. "I just got these, sent from home."
    I gathered them up and turned them over. I did not like being shown photographs "from home." I always found myself embarrassed when confronted with pictures of scraggy or sagging wives and overfed, grinning offspring, and I had learned from June and Betty to overcome this embarrassment and to say, "Now, it beats me how a ghastly man like you managed to hook himself such a divine wife and produce such angelic children."
    But this time there was no need to brace myself. "What a beautiful woman," I said.
    "Part of her profession. She used to be an actress," he said.
    In another snapshot, immediately recognizable, like the winged lion on things Venetian, was the baby’s scowling face, stamped with the square jaw and square forehead. "How old is the little girl?" I asked.
    "Three," said the Major.
    "Really, Major," I said, "with a lovely wife like this, I cannot understand how you can even as much as look at another woman."
    "I don’t look. So what the hell are you talking about?"
    As I turned away and his laughter followed