False Gods by Louis Auchincloss

Author:Louis Auchincloss [Auchincloss, Louis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9780395604755
Publisher: Constable
Published: 1992-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

She was always alone when he came. There would be a bright fire and tea things on a little table, to be followed, after the consumption of a single cup, by the butler with the cocktail tray. Heloise was not so much beautiful as exquisite. Her blond hair and wide opaque eyes and pale luminous skin might have evoked a sense of serenity had they not been balanced by her darting gestures and the vivid mobility of her facial expressions, which announced the accomplished maîtresse de maison, and by the low musical voice that constituted so perfect an instrument for her fine intelligence.

"Do you know, my dear," she asked him on an evening which seemed for her to be a kind of summing up, "that this is my favorite part of the day?"

"Mightn't that be because it's mine?"

"Oh, you don't have to say that. I wasn't fishing. And I suppose it's a mistake to chatter about the things one really loves. They sound smaller when you try to put them into words. But the two of us here by the fire, with the slight lift of the cocktail and with our beloved understanding that it's just this and doesn't have to be anything else at all ... ah, it's time suspended, it's magic! But how I go on. Tell me to shut up. Tell me about your day. How is the house in Syosset coming? Did you solve the problem of the tower?"

"No. Except that I may eliminate it. It was a quiet day. Nothing at all, really. Oh, except that Mother called. She wants me for dinner on Monday. I said I was going to the opera with you and Uncle Humphrey, but she insisted she absolutely had to have me and promised she'd square it with you."

It was their tacit understanding that she would always re-lease him. "That's quite all right. We'll be four without you, so there'll be three in the front row. You know Cousin Polly's rule when she gives you her box. No gaps in the diamond horseshoe! But why is your mama so desperate?"

"It's always the same thing. She's got some sweet little body she wants me to meet."

"She never gives up, does she?"

"Do you imply she should recognize that the case is hopeless?"

"Not at all. I haven't the slightest doubt that you will marry when and whom you wish."

"At any rate she will be a young lady who is glad to recognize your place in my life. One who will know how much she has to gain by your friendship."

"Oh, my dear Gilbert, you don't know our sex if you really believe that. She will want my head on a silver platter. That's fine. She shall have it. But not yet. No, not quite yet. Never fear. I shall know the time when it comes."

The more delicate-minded among the acquaintance of Heloise and Gilbert preferred to describe their relationship as an amitié amoureuse; the more earthy called it an affair. Gilbert took a pleasure which his mother found perverse in the confusion of his observers.

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