The imperfect lady

SYLVIA LYON

On my return to Paris I found the smallish flat I had taken still in the hands of interior detractors, so decided to descendre, as the French say, for a few days at the Ritz. Bianca was to meet me there at half-past one, but she was evidently late. These are trying-on days for women, so doubtless a fitting had delayed her. I stepped into the bar for a moment, leaving a message with the concierge for Bianca. But still no sign of her. I finally found the girl, myself, fairly doubled over a desk in the writing-room. At the sight of me she composed her features and posture, and gazed at me coldly.

Immediately on the defense, I said. "Didn't they tell you I was in the bar?" "Oh, William," Bianca said softly, "I never believe anything anybody says about people in Paris." "Don't be funny," I said crossly, rather like parents who spank their children after having been nearly mad with fear that they are lost. "What have you been doing here in this writing-room?"

"Having my hand gnawed by a Spanish painter named Beltran-Masses," she replied evenly. "He just said to me 'Bianca, you are no longer la jeune fille blanche. Vous êtes devenue une femme féroce.' He then tried to imitate a devastating and powerful attitude he says I've taken on, much to the alarm of a nasty woman passing through the room at that moment, who owes him a portrait-bill. I'll bet she pays him, now. I have my uses, William dear."

"If you've become so ferocious," I said, as we went to our table, "perhaps you can continue this attitude with the men who are reinforcing the floor of my flat."

"What was the matter with the previous tenant?" asked Bianca, with her appalling quickness.

"He was a sly-by-night financier," I told Bianca, "and it's just like the pure young man that I am, to inherit what was, with architectural obviousness, a love-nest. I intended to turn the bedroom into a salon-dining-room, and fortunately discovered that under the exact spot where I was going to place a very heavy table, to say nothing of my hypothetical guests, were the remains of a swimming-pool. Such a quaint idea to have a swimming-pool on the level with a bedroom floor."

"Doesn't sound on the level to me," said Bianca reprovingly, "it must have been a love-bird-bath, size of an eagle. Really and truly, William, that is no fiat for you. Is there room for two people?" "Yes," I said. "Then you are going to move right out," she said, with some extra-active eagerness too subtle for any implication of jealousy.

"But I can't afford to," I said, "unless I can sub-lease the place."

"I will find you a tenant," said Bianca, "in fact I have found one already. Talbot Grange, the film star, who specializes in being a man of the world and has ambitions for becoming a director, has settled in Paris for six months, on full pay. I am sure he will he delighted to take the flat off your hands."

Talbot Grange did.

I wondered what devilment Bianca was up to: there was something positively sinister in the way in which, before my very eyes, she sublet the fiat for me. Her explanation, afterwards, that the now covered pool would make the film star feel at home, did not suffice. I asked her what was back of her achievement.

"It's what's before us," she said, as we went for a drive in the Bois. "That is the chief difference between Americans and the French. The French have vision only for the past.

"Just before you returned to Paris, William, Talbot Grange arrived, armed with letters of introduction. The first thing he said was, 'Do you know any people who have ideas for gags?' 'Loads of them,' I said. 'Well, I don't want to meet any of them,' he said. 'With the cut in salary I have received, I can't afford to buy any more aspirin. I am also sick of people who come to Hollywood and are paid huge fees to tell us how Spaniards should act to the mahana born. When I go back to Hollywood I'm going to get my salary raised, having learned everything,' he added elegantly, 'from these slobs over here.' 'How are you going to start?' I asked, with studied indifference. 'I've been told you are a terrible little snob, Bianca,' he said tactfully, 'so maybe you can teach me things.' 'Thanks so much,' I said sweetly, 'what would you like to know first?' 'A member of the English aristocracy,' he said consulting his note-book.

"'How about Lady Pearl Pontefax?' I suggested. 'Has she any money?' he asked guardedly, being very well read up in Anita Loos. 'Loads of it,' I said carelessly. 'How did she get it?' he asked. I felt like saying, 'Out of her own little bed,' hut I did not think that would he very nice of me.

"Talbot went quite mad over Lady Pearl," continued Bianca, "endowing her with a pathetically childish glamour, all mixed up with a vulgar snobbishness of conquest. On one hand he was the worshipful romantic, on the other, he became swollen with grandeur like those huge Michelin tire figures that used to parade in the carnivals at Nice."

"But where does my flat come in?" I asked.

"I will let you know," said Bianca, "when Lady Pearl moves in."

"I never did like that flat," I said, "hut I am not exactly enthusiastic about your acting as intermediary for such a release."

"Don't be moral, William," admonished Bianca, "think of what the results may he for the Eighth Art."

Some days later I asked Bianca how the Pontefax-Grange ménage was getting along. "According to Talbot," said Bianca, "the only trouble is that it isn't getting along famously. You know these 'rests', these summer vacations of cinema people. They never can bear keeping their private lives private.

"I am really crazy about Pearl,' Talbot told me, 'but my publicity staff in Hollywood says I am dying on the job. I had cabled them a communique stating, "Paris, France. Mr. Talbot Grange is being seen about a great deal with Lady Pearl Pontefax." The idiots wired back, "Who is she?"

"'Imagine, Bianca,' he exclaimed, 'asking who she is.' 'Don't be so fussy,' I said, 'suppose they had wired asking who she n:as? Then you would have had to look her up in Debrett, which may he a closed book to you but it's Debrett of life to me.'

"Talbot looked so crushed that I added briefly, clearly, 'Get down from that familytree, Talbot: Lady Pearl used to he in the chorus. And if you need more facts, her last appearance was in a revival of the Floradora Sextête-à-tête.'

"'That's not so hot,' said Talbot grudgingly. 'I've got to do something to make a front-page story. And Pearl,' he complained, 'won't even marry me. I've even gone so far as to bribe the owner's agent to let me rebuild the swimming-pool so I can give a cocktail party in it to make Pearl and me feel at home.

"'By any coincidence, Bianca,' he asked me, as an afterthought, 'do you know any reliable members of the press? Just one or two. I want to make this story exclusive, see?'"

Bianca stopped and smiled demurely to herself. "About two months ago," she went on, "I happened to meet Cunliffe Spenser (with an 's'), the new Paris correspondent of the Evening Train, a London tabloid with a society gossip complex. Said Mr. Spenser to me, after I had explained who was what or why not, in Paris, 'My dear Miss Forest, the people you know are much too nice. They will never get in the news. Don't you know any wild people?' 'Certainly not,' I said primly. 'Oh dear,' he said in despair, 'there's nothing ever going on in Paris.'

"'Lady Pearl Pontefax,' I said in a reportorial tone, 'was in the audience at the first performance of the new Guitry play. Although it was evening, she wore a blue and pink toque shot with silver and osprey feathers. Lady Pearl was seated in the front row having hiccoughs, to the joy of Guitry's worst enemy, Alfred Savoir.'

"'Ah, Lady Pearl Pontefax,' said Spenser, with true British indifference to Art, 'what is she doing now?' 'Well,' I said patiently, I hope the hiccoughs are over. Of course,' I added warily, 'she's had a swimming-pool installed in a new flat that Mr. Talbot Grange, the cinema-star, lent her.'

"'I wonder if there's anything in that,' he said cautiously. 'If there isn't,' I said, 'then there's something wrong with this new French government hydro-electric waterpower system. But at all events,' I went on, 'my friend Talbot Grange is giving a very smart cocktail-party day after tomorrow, no newspapermen at all. But, as you went to Balliol with most of Lady Pearl's younger lovers, perhaps you can make the grade. 1 can't take you with me. Just go there and say you're waiting for me.'

"Your old flat having a rather pleasant terrace, and the day of the party being sunny, it was quite fit that Talbot and Lady Pearl wear bathing-suits. As for some of Lady Pearl's ribald friends, they just adored some new trick bathing-suits she'd found in Germany, cute things that melt on you when you've been in the water two minutes.

"Of course the pool's being small, they had to take turns, watches in hand, and used up quite a lot of suits, just for the fun of melting them.

"Everything went well until the pool leaked through the ceiling, and, naturally, complaints were made to the concierge, who ran to the commissaire de police, who rushed to the flat, with his adjutant.

"'This is an outrage,' said the commissaire, examining a pretzel, rather damp, that Lady Pearl had archly tossed him from the pool. 'You need a license for this kind of thing.'

"'What kind of thing?' screamed Lady Pearl. 'Why this seems to be a cinema-studio,' said tbe commissaire, 'I recognize my wife's favorite actor, Mr. TalbotGrange.' They had all gotten together beautifully by that time, Cunliffe Spenser being literally in the clutches of Lady Pearl. Both of them were in ecstasies and in the pool, as Talbot made a most informal movie of them.

"The concierge who felt rather out of things, even though she had been chucked on all her chins by the commissaire, walked heavily down stairs and telephoned to the Duke. 'There's an orgy going on,' she informed him. 'I'll be right over,' replied the Duke, 'hold it.'

"When the Duke arrived, he quickly gathered all the wits and suppleness of his race. Righteously indignant out of his monocle, his other eye, without any semblable wavering, lingered upon Lady Pearl and her girl-friends. 'My daughter,' he fumed, 'my daughter. Pauvre fille!' 'Your daughter is not here,' said Talbot politely, 'if I had known you were coming I would have invited her, too.'

"The Duke leaned for consolation against the Frigidaire. 'And to think." he said in anguish, 'that day after tomorrow I am marrying my daughter.'

"Spenser, Englishman, journalist and hard-bitten Protestant, sprang to life. 'French Duke marrying his own daughter. How horrible,' he exclaimed aghast, 'how horrible.'

"The Duke, a graduate of Harrow and Magdalen, said stiffly to Spenser, 'Monsieur, je vous ai dit que demain je marie ma file. Do you think I'd marry anybody else's daughter? No doubt your beastly journal is subsidized to spread anti-French propaganda. If one word of this affair is mentioned by you, neither you nor any other newspaperman can enter Notre-Dame day after to-morrow when my daughter AnneGhislaine marries, en toute intimité, le Comte Stanislas de Gauntaut-de-Gaunautde Gauntot, second son of Edmé de Gauntaut-de-Gaunaut-de Gauntot, Due Jurien de la Jurien, member of the Académie Française, mort pour la France.'

"The commissaire and his adjutant rose rather dizzily to salute and the concierge burst into tears. Spenser hurriedly dressed and returned to his office, a chastened man. As soon as he had gone, the Duke said sternly to Talbot, 'I will give you the necessary three months' formal notice to quit the premises." As far as I'm concerned,' said Talbot sourly, 'I'll leave right now. And I am sailing for God's country on the next boat.

"All of which has been carried out.' said Bianca.

"And Lady Pearl?" I inquired.

"Oh she is staying on," said Bianca carelessly, "with the Duke. He's going to finance a film for her. There's nothing a Frenchman won't do for art, especially when it's art for tart's sake."