Theatre Page 0,38

He told her that after dinner he would go along the train and see for himself if something could not be arranged. One never knew what one of the conductors could not manage for a tip.

"I'm simply tired out," she said. "I'd willingly give five hundred francs for a sleeper."

The conversation thus started, he told her that he was an attache at the Spanish Embassy in Paris and was going down to Cannes for Easter. Though she had been talking to him for a quarter of an hour she had not troubled to notice what he was like. She observed now that he had a beard, a black curly beard and a black curly moustache, but the beard grew rather oddly on his face; there were two bare patches under the corners of his mouth. It gave him a curious look. With his black hair, drooping eyelids and rather long nose, he reminded her of someone she had seen. Suddenly she remembered, and it was such a surprise that she blurted out:

"D'you know, I couldn't think who you reminded me of. You're strangely like Titian's portrait of Francis I in the Louvre."

"With his little pig's eyes?"

"No, not them, yours are large, I think it's the beard chiefly."

She glanced at the skin under his eyes; it was faintly violet and unwrinkled. Notwithstanding the ageing beard he was quite a young man; he could not have been more than thirty. She wondered if he was a Spanish Grandee. He was not very well dressed, but then foreigners often weren't, his clothes might have cost a lot even if they were badly cut, and his tie, though rather loud, she recognized as a Charvet. When they came to the coffee he asked her whether he might offer her a liqueur.

"That's very kind of you. Perhaps it'll make me sleep better."

He offered her a cigarette. His cigarette-case was silver, that put her off a little, but when he closed it she saw that in the corner was a small crown in gold. He must be a count or something. It was rather chic, having a silver cigarette-case with a gold crown on it. Pity he had to wear those modern clothes! If he'd been dressed like Francis I he would really look very distinguished. She set herself to be as gracious as she knew how.

"I think I should tell you," he said presently, "that I know who you are. And may I add that I have a great admiration for you?"

She gave him a lingering look of her splendid eyes.

"You've seen me act?"

"Yes, I was in London last month."

"An interesting little play, wasn't it?"

"Only because you made it so."

When the man came round to collect the money she had to insist on paying her own bill. The Spaniard accompanied her to the carriage and then said he would go along the train to see if he could find a sleeper for her. He came back in a quarter of an hour with a conductor and told her that he had got her a compartment and if she would give the conductor her things he would take her to it. She was delighted. He threw down his hat on the seat she vacated and she followed him along the corridor. When they reached the compartment he told the conductor to take the portmanteau and the dispatch-case that were in the rack to the carriage madame had just left.

"But it's not your own compartment you're giving up to me?" cried Julia.

"It's the only one on the train."

"Oh, but I won't hear of it."

" Allez," the Spaniard said to the conductor.

"No, no."

The conductor, on a nod from the stranger, took the luggage away.

"I don't matter. I can sleep anywhere, but I shouldn't sleep a wink if I thought that such a great artist was obliged to spend the night in a stuffy carriage with three other people."

Julia continued to protest, but not too much. It was terribly sweet of him. She didn't know how to thank him. He would not even let her pay for the sleeper. He begged her, almost with tears in his eyes, to let him have the great privilege of making her that trifling present. She had with her only a dressing-bag, in which were her face creams, her night-dress and her toilet things, and this he put on the table for her. All he asked was that he might be allowed to sit