Poor Caroline by Winifred Holtby Read Free Book Online Page B

other. Were you going anywhere?'
    'Only eventually back to the city. But not in any hurry,' smiled Joseph nervously.
    'Then come and have a drink first,' said Basil, as though Joseph Isenbaum were the one man in all London whom he had hoped to meet.
    They left the shop together, leaving the tailor more har assed, angry, outraged and discomforted than he had ever been since Mitchell's stood in Sackville Street. But Joseph was elated. He knew that he had done a good day's work. If a few hundred pounds invested in a wild-cat enterprise to purify the cinema could buy him the friendship of an old Etonian, the investment was as good as made.
    §2

    A week later, Joseph Isenbaum asked St. Denis to bring Miss Denton-Smyth to lunch with him at Boulestin's. He had devoted some thought to the details of that party. 'It's not enough for the man to be indebted to me,' he had told himself. 'He's got to like me.' He felt that the liking depended to a great extent upon the choice of a restaurant. The Savoy was too hackneyed, Claridge's no place for busi ness, Simpson's too beef-steaky and he-mannish. He chose Boulestin's.
    Sitting in the ante-room, uneasily turning over smooth new copies of the Sketch and Taller, he waited for St. Denis and the lady who had inspired his interest in the cinema. He was anxious to meet this Miss Denton-Smyth, for though still uncertain of St. Denis's honesty and intentions, Joseph felt perfect confidence in his taste. Any lady whom St. Denis brought to lunch would be worth entertaining.
    Joseph tried to imagine what she would be like. He pic tured her walking down the shallow rose-carpeted stairs, and pausing to look at the glass case imprisoning bags and scarves and fantastic glass beads displayed by an amusingly expensive store. Would she be young, shy, ardent, the least little trifle absurd in her fanaticism, like the charming young thing who had once tried to interest him in a dancing school? Or would she be a business woman, keen and com petent as a greyhound, and unruffled as a fashion-sketch from Vogue?
    She was late of course. They were both late. He imagined that St. Denis would always be a little late. Unpunctuality was the privilege of charming people. Joseph himself always
    arrived everywhere a little too early, and then suffered anguish from the embarrassment of waiting.
    He was perturbed to-day by other considerations. Should he offer cocktails? Or was St. Denis one of those gourmets who accuse cocktails of blasphemy against the well-trained palate? And if a cocktail, which?
    He studied the little list. 'Moonshine,' 'Kingston,' 'Alex andre'? This lunch was going to cost him a pretty penny. It would be worth it, of course, if only Benjamin could go to Eton. But though aware of the advantages of extrava gance, he could not refrain from reckoning his losses. His generosity and his economies were spasmodic. After a lunch at Boulestin's, he would ride for weeks in buses, and snap at his wife for buying her stockings in half-dozen pairs.
    He thought he would smoke. Smoking gave a fellow self- confidence. The sight of his cigarette-case reassured him. He had exercised commendable self-control in choosing plain tortoise-shell with a gold monogram, when he might so easily have carried platinum set with diamonds. His cigarette-case, he considered, was All Right, and it was immensely important to be All Right when one was the father of a prospective Etonian.
    His attention was diverted from his contemplation of Ben's future by the sight of a woman entering the restaurant. She was so remarkable a woman that Joseph stared at her with indignation. For when one has gone to all the trouble and expense of choosing to entertain acquaintances at Boulestin's, one does at least expect to be spared nuisances of that kind. Joseph wanted her to be removed immediately, not rudely of course, and not in any way that would cause discomfort to a spectator, but gently and firmly lured upstairs again, and out into the more