Page:Levenson - Butterfly Man.djvu/252

250 In the bedroom was the half empty bottle of Irish whiskey. Ken drank.

In Bowler's bag were lacey underthings. "My passion," said the drunken Englishman. "Primitive, you might say."

"Lemme put 'em on," said Ken.

"Right you are."

He strewed women's silken hose, scant transparencies, on the bed. Ken stripped.

The gentle silk, soothing, caressed him. He was slim, elegantly slim.

"They fit," said Bowler. "Say, those black stockings remind me of the pictures in a book of Pierre Louy's."

"Why?"

"A pair of silk stockings enhances the thrill, Louys says. Look, you could have had me in the Opera, on the Strand, in the taxicab. I'm the same one. Elegant idea, wot?"

"Elegant." Ken thrilled to the feel of the scant garments. "I'm elegant."

With a pirouette, a kick and a leap, he was at the door. He opened it and as if pursued by the wind, raced across the lawn to the Parsonage. He leaped up the narrow steps, the dripping mist moistening the silk, which clung to him as a sheath. The door was open, Farragut's back to him. Alicia was smiling. Howard was shaking hands with a tall distinguished looking man who was saying:

"I must go to bed before dawn or—"

The ridiculously clad youth, whose wild eyes betrayed his intoxicated state, saw and heard none of this. His first glance fell upon a dark-haired boy, very young, very fresh, the clear white of unsullied adolescence in his eyes. Forgetting his raiment, recoiling momentarily from the