“I’m just as bad as she is now,” Pauline was saying. “You have to hit back.”
Wanda Morley had reached the buffet. People turned to look at her. Some smiled and spoke, but her responses were brief. She paused to speak to a man. Rod joined them. Wanda refused a cocktail with a gesture, took a cigarette from her bag and put it between her lips. Both men produced matches. She smiled impartially at either, hesitated a moment, then leaned toward Rod.
Pauline’s pencil traced a side view of Wanda, exaggerating her fluent suppleness so that it looked boneless and snaky. The line wavered. Pauline’s hand was shaking. She crossed out the imperfect sketch with slashing strokes.
“Black hair and golden eyes,” remarked Basil. “Rather like a puma. Those three would make a neat composition. You could call it Puma with Stag and Sheep.”
Rod was the stag—long-legged and fleet-looking, with a round, intense eye and a flaring nostril. The other man was the sheep—narrow forehead, pendulous nose, dull eyes set close together.
Pauline’s answering smile was cheerless. “Pumas prey on deer and sheep, don’t they?”
“That’s the point. Do you happen to know these victims?”
“The sheep is Leonard Martin. The stag is Rodney Tait. They’re both in Wanda’s company. Rod brought her here this afternoon. He’s supposed to be getting a cocktail for me now, but he seems to have forgotten all about it.”
“Can I—?”
“No, I don’t believe I want one after all.” There was a snap as the point of Pauline’s pencil broke. “She only does it to annoy because she knows it teases!”
“Does what?”
“What’s she’s doing now. Preying.”
There was something a little avid in the red-lipped smile and the bright, yellow eyes set off by the pale face and black clothing. The color scheme was carefully planned, vivid as a playing card, and the features looked just a little larger than life. The face would have been eye-catching on a hoarding or a stage, but it was a little overwhelming at close range. Wanda was a poster, Basil decided, and Pauline a miniature. Wanda’s beauty would bloom under a spotlight that would wash out Pauline’s softer coloring and more delicate features.
Wanda was talking to the two men with animation. Her thin mouth writhed against her face like a small, red snake. It was extraordinarily mobile—proud, wistful, ironic, beguiling in bewildered succession. Smoke trailing from the cigarette in her hand traced the suave line of each gesture as visibly as sky-writing. To Basil, it seemed that Wanda was performing the part of the charming and successful actress; conscious of many eyes upon her, yet less sensitive to their impact than a person unused to living in public. Just as an object that is constantly handled acquires a patina—worn, hard, smooth, glossy and a little soiled—so the surface of Wanda’s personality seemed to have been glazed and tarnished by the curious glances that were always sliding over her face and figure wherever she went.
“Oh, Lord, here she comes!” murmured Pauline.
Wanda had dropped her cigarette in an ash tray. Her flat, limp muff was tucked under one elbow as she drew on long, beige gloves. She moved forward slowly, still talking to Rod and Leonard, her small, dark head tilted on the long, flexible white column of neck. She drew them in her wake as a magnet draws steel filings.
“Why, Pauline, darling! What a surprise to see you here! Somehow one just never thinks of a costume designer as being interested in real art.”
Pauline smiled. “If ever you meet any of your friends in heaven, Wanda, I’m sure you’ll say: Darling, what a surprise to see you here!”
Wanda wasn’t listening. Her eyes had shifted to Basil. Their glance was as intimate as a caress. “Aren’t you going to introduce us?”
“Dr. Willing, Miss Morley. Mr. Tait, Mr. Martin.” Pauline was curt.
“Not Basil Willing—the famous psychiatrist!”
Even as Basil told himself this was boloney his ego began to purr.
“To think of actually meeting you! Pauline, dear, you must bring him to my opening tonight. You have an extra ticket, haven’t you? Dr. Willing, it would mean so much to me to know you were in the audience! We’re all going to have supper at the Capri afterward and wait up for the reviews in the morning papers. You will join us, won’t you?”
The very suddenness of the invitation made Basil hesitate. “Well—”
“Of course you will!” Wanda swept on imperiously, and he saw she didn’t really care whether he came or not. In the language of the stage, she was simply using him to feed her lines in her chosen role of Fascinating Femininity. At the same time, he realized that some men would fall for this sort of thing. Certainly Rod and Leonard seemed to be falling for it.
“I wish I could stop to talk now,” pursued Wanda, “but I’m giving an interview to a reporter from the Sun at six-thirty, a photographer from Vogue is coming at seven, and I must have at least one hour’s rest before I go to the theater. You have no idea how I hate all this fuss and bother and publicity! It’s so false. If only I could live a real life in some quiet little suburb doing all my own housework and caring for a husband and children!”
“Why don’t you?” Pauline’s voice was small and dry. “It’s a free country.”
“My dear girl!” A hint of shrillness broke through the smooth surface of Wanda’s trained voice. A hint of color darkened her cheeks. Basil had seen similar symptoms in neurotic patients brought face to face with the cause of a neurosis they would not admit. He decided that Wanda was one of those chronic self-deceivers who becomes allergic to truth. At least truth had much the same effect as a chemical allergy on her vaso-motor system. But she rallied quickly with practiced ingenuity. “Special talents impose special responsibilities. I can’t just think of myself as if I were a nobody. I have a duty to my public and my art. Think of all the people who would be thrown out of work if I disbanded my company. Not only actors, but stage-hands and ushers and—people like that!”
Pauline laughed.
“Now Dives daily feasted and was gorgeously arrayed
Not at all because he liked it, but because ’twas good for trade.”
“Really, Pauline, that sounds almost communistic to me.” Wanda looked at a slender gold band on her wrist. The little watch was covered with a cabochon topaz in place of the usual crystal. “Heavens, it’s nearly five-thirty now! I must dash! Good-by, darling! Dr. Willing, I’m counting on you tonight. Good-by, Leonard . . .
Rod started to go with her, but she stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Don’t bother to come with me, Rod. Sam Milhau is driving me home. We have a few things to talk over before tonight. The boy who was to play Desiré has fallen ill, and we’ll have to cut out his lines. Fortunately there are only a few!”
Rod seemed a little piqued at this dismissal. Pauline was amused. Leonard’s thoughtful eyes followed Wanda as she passed through the crowd like a breeze through a field of poppies, leaving a trail of turning heads behind her.
A waiter presented a tray of French pastry. Pauline took a strawberry tart. Basil and Rod followed suit. Leonard eyed the remaining tarts and savarins with distaste and shook his head.
“Poor Wanda!” cried Pauline. “She’s beginning to ham off-stage as well as on!”
Leonard’s long face broke into a wry grin of appreciation, but Rod was dismayed.