THE WHITE WOLF by Franklin Gregory Read Free Book Online

also synthetics and isolates, for chemistry had brought the Salon de Camp-d Avesnes a very long way since Gervase had set up his little shop off Front Street.
    A shadow crossed the steel door to the big vault. Pierre glanced up.
     
    “Oh, hello, David.”
     
    “Busy?”
     
    “Not at all, son; come in.”
     
    David stooped to enter the vault. He peered at the illuminated shelves.
    “Quite a place you have here.”
     
    Pierre beamed.
     
    “Just about anything you’ll find in the trade. Never been here before?”
     
    David, inspecting the labels on the containers, shook his head.
     
    “Got ambergris?”
     
    Pierre grinned.
     
    “I knew you’d ask that right off. Everybody does. Seems all the public knows about perfume is what they read in the papers—fishermen picking up*a chunk along the beach. Yes, I’ve a little. That’s it there. Don't need much. Use it only in one of our products. Gives diffusiveness, you know. You probably didn’t.”
     
    David pulled out a pack of cigarettes and started to light one. Pierre held up a pudgy hand.
     
    “Not here, please. Too big an investment and smoke’s insidious. . . . Jasmin oil there. . . . What’s on your mind?”
     
    There was a bench in the vault and David sat down, legs wide apart, hands loosely clasped between.
     
    “Sara,” he said with frank directness.
     
    Pierre looked at David shrewdly. “H'm-m-m.”
     
    Pierre's left eyelid dropped and he fingered his mole. He said:
     
    “She’s been pretty restless lately.”
     
    “It’s more than that,” David said. “She’s—growing pretty cold.”
     
    Pierre said, “H’m-m.”
     
    He said it with more force. He added, “Think there’s someone else?”
     
    “N-no,” David said hesitantly. “No. I’m pretty sure of that. I don’t know what. I thought perhaps—you’d know.”
     
    Pierre, too, sat down on the bench. He didn’t look at David. He stared at a bottle labeled “methyl phenyl acetate,” a puzzled look in his eyes.
     
    “I think she’s sick,” Pierre said gruffly. “But you can’t tell her anything. She’s bull-headed like her mother. Been moody. Got circles under her eyes. Noticed last night her dress was loose. Losing weight, I wouldn’t wonder. Needs to get away, that's what. But when I said so, she flounced out of the room.”
     
    Pierre’s eyes, usually so merry, were somber now. He became contrite.
     
    “My fault, I suppose. Don’t bring her up right. A man can't raise a girl. Shouldn't . have tried.”
     
    David hoisted one leg over the other, leaned back and jammed his big hands into his trouser pockets.
     
    “I don't think,” he began slowly, “it's that so much. I think. . . . Well, there might be something wrong with . . . well, with her. . . Pierre tapped his temple with a fat finger. “You mean here?” he asked in surprise. David nodded.
     
    “Can’t see how you figure,” Pierre said.
     
    “I don’t. It’s only something I feel.” “H’m-m. I know. You’re sensitive to things. I am, too.”
     
    “Maybe,” David said. “And maybe it’s something else. Do you remember Heath, the Great Dane we had that got hydrophobia? I could tell something was going wrong, but I couldn't tell what. And those Ayrshires of ours. Why, people think one cow’s just like any other. But they aren’t. Each one’s a little different. And sometimes I see where one's becoming quite a bit different, gets some crazy idea in her head and wants to raise the devil.”
     
    David fell silent then. Along with his other troubles, he had suffered a speech defect when younger. He had learned to control his words, to force one to follow the other in slow measure—and never to say too much. He’d said too much now and he knew anything else he said would jumble up.
     
    Pierre’s eyes remained fixed on the bottle of synthetic odor of gardenia.
     
    “What's the answer?” he asked finally.
     
    “W-well,” David said slowly, “I thought maybe if she saw