Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/354

 woman. His duty was to fall in love with a dormouse, or some easy, clinging creature to whom his square virility would always seem splendid and final. Her own cleverness would always be knocking against the corners of his robust and rather simple stability. He was like a fine piece of furniture, good oak, lasting; and her mobile temperament revolted from the idea of being shut up in an oak cupboard. She preferred lacquer, something lighter and less solemn.

Their affair grew almost grim. He walked into her shop one afternoon at the very moment when she and Mr. Oscar Wolffe were making merry over some new Paris frocks. In fact she was trying them on, disappearing into the ivory-painted fitting-room, and emerging with mischievous frivolity. Wolffe sat on a stool with a sleek smirk on his formless face, and his clever little coffee-berry eyes glimmering. There was very little that Wolffe did not know. His broad and pulpy nose was a very organ of sophistication. His ugliness and his air of pallid sagacity were attractive; he understood the finer, decadent shades; he knew at once what was wrong with a dress. Nothing shocked him. He had the whole Monte Carlo culture vibrant in the tips of his thick but sensitive fingers. He made you laugh, and he made a lot of money.

One moment they were alone, delicately fooling,—and then Kit was there with a face like a white squall. Always this Mr. Oscar Wolffe had been stormily sinister in the back of Kit's mind, but he had never spoken of him to Molly. His interference had not gone quite so far.

Molly introduced them. They nodded at each other, Wolffe slyly secure on his stool and looking upwards with whimsical solemnity at Kit's stiff face.

"Interested in frocks?"

Kit was not interested in frocks. He was chiefly conscious of that solemn, pudgy countenance, so sagacious, so enigmatic. He divined the smile at the back of it, the ironical attention of the worldling who was pleasantly amused.

"I have tickets for the Haymarket to-night. Can you come?"

He turned squarely to Molly, interposing himself between her and the man on the stool.