Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/133

 

It was not her own apartment. She hated Brinoë because she thought the people who lived there dull and stuffy and full of gossip. It was an apartment loaned her by Nina de Paulhac, Nina knowing well enough what it was to be used for. A great many people knew, she thought, and yet what difference did it make? Your friends were your friends no matter what you did, and the others did not matter. Only she must not make a fool of herself. When women were old, love sometimes made them silly. She mustn't be an old fool like Mrs. Whitby, running after gigolos and dubious dukes at sixty.

The apartment was strange to her and there was only Ottilia, the femme de ménage, to show her about. Ottilia knew why she was there. Well, better that she did know. Then there wouldn't be any violated innocence. She wondered how many times the apartment had been lent to others for the same purpose.

Swarthy, moustached, with ox-like eyes, Ottilia showed her the bedrooms and the two baths.

"I am hard," she thought. "But what of it? God knows I've reason to be hard. Only where love is concerned, I am not hard. It's always me that suffers. You can't be really hard if you go on being hurt again and again."

She told Ottilia to keep the supper hot. "It's impossible to ruin Italian food," she thought. And aloud, "I'm expecting a friend to dine with me."

Yes. Ottilia knew. Signora de Paulhac had written her. 