The Light of Paris. Элеонора Браун

and unlit tobacco.

      “I’m so sorry,” she said, when the air had done its job. She had begun to shiver, but she didn’t want to move just yet. The champagne giddiness had gone, replaced by a different pleasure. Above them, the stars were sharp and lustrous, and she liked the steady comfort of Robert beside her.

      He was handsome in a careless way, and though he had been raised to be polite, there was something of a rake about him. He drove a sporty Monroe roadster and though he was older than she, almost twenty-five, he didn’t seem to be in any rush to settle down and get married, or even work for a living. She always heard him talking about one party or another, or a trip he had taken to Atlantic City, or Boston, or New York.

      Her parents had selected him to be her escort, and his parents had probably agreed for him. Yet here they were now, alone, and he didn’t seem to want to be part of what was happening out in the party any more than she did. Could it be that he was like her, maybe a little shy, a little dreamy? Maybe he had been misunderstood all this time and all he needed was someone who would allow him to be himself, and he would see that in her and she would look up at him with dewy eyes, her heart pounding, and …

      “No need to apologize,” Robert said. “Your teeth are chattering—you must be frozen. Are you feeling better? Should we go back inside?”

      Startled, Margie nodded, and he gestured politely for her to go in first. He closed the doors behind them, but the chill remained in the air, so Robert strode over to the fireplace, taking the match holder from the mantel and lighting the fire that had been laid there. “Have a seat,” he said, gesturing toward the sofa closest to the fireplace. She settled into the cushions, sliding out of his jacket as he brought over the coverlet from the bed and tucked her in, grinning and winking at her as though they shared a secret. Margie felt the heat in her face again.

      “Thank you,” she said after a few moments, when she was warm again. “I don’t know what came over me.”

      Robert shrugged. He sat down in an armchair by the fireplace, resting one foot on the opposite knee. He took the still-unlit cigar out of his mouth and set it in a large crystal ashtray on the tiny, spindly end table. “You’ve had quite an evening. And this party did go from amusing to outrageous rather quickly.”

      Margie’s heart quickened again, thinking of Elsie and that man kissing passionately, of the couple in the bedroom, a flash of bare arms and legs entwined before she had closed the door. “I hear Europeans are scandalously free these days,” she said, trying to sound worldly, like she went to parties like this all the time, as he apparently did.

      Instead of laughing at her, Robert simply nodded. “They are. But you can’t blame them. They’ve been through a lot. It’s a miracle there’s anyone left, isn’t it? Between the war and the ’flu?”

      “Why didn’t you go?” Margie asked tentatively. “To the war?”

      Instead of answering, he stared into the fire silently for a few moments. “Money,” he said finally, “has all sorts of privileges. My father bought my way out.”

      “Oh.” The idea that he had avoided service on purpose made her feel embarrassed for him. She scrambled for a conciliatory remark. “Of course you’re important to the company. It’s right you should have stayed home, or who would take over the business from your father if you …” she trailed off, realizing she was about to suggest Robert’s tragic demise.

      He didn’t seem to notice. He was still watching the fire, and then, abruptly, he pulled himself out of his trance and slipped a hearty smile back onto his face. “Quite right, quite right. Shall I get us a drink?” he asked, but didn’t wait for a reply. He pushed himself up from the chair and was out of the room before Margie could say anything.

      It wasn’t until he was gone that she really took in that she was sitting alone in a bedroom with a man. She’d never been in such a circumstance before, hadn’t even countenanced the idea that it might happen before she was married. Was it terrible she didn’t feel it was so wrong?

      She knew what she should do, of course. She should leave this party and all its shocking business behind and go downstairs and get her coat from the check before it closed and her mother’s fur went into whatever purgatorial limbo happened to coats in the coat check past closing time. The hotel doorman would get her a taxicab and she would say her address loudly and confidently, as if she traveled by herself in the middle of the night all the time, “3241 R Street,” and she’d go home and ring the bell and her father would pay the taxi and she could be safe in her own bed in an hour, her dress hanging on the wardrobe door and this night nothing more than a beautiful dream with a queer ending.

      But she didn’t. She sat by the fire wrapped in the coverlet, and in a few moments Robert came back carrying a champagne bucket in one hand and a pair of glasses between his fingers. She heard a rush of music and conversation when the door opened, which stilled again when he closed it.

      “I hope you like champagne. There’s gin, but that’s an acquired taste.” He put the champagne bucket on the end table and pulled out the bottle, sweating and chilled from its ice bath, and used a napkin to gently tug out the cork. It sprang free with a sharp pop, and Margie could hear the fizz as he poured her a glass.

      “I do like champagne,” Margie said, although she felt sure she had been on a roller coaster of it all night and it was long past time for her to get off. Still, when he handed it to her, she took it, sipping at it gently, letting the bubbles pop against the roof of her mouth, savoring the sweetness on her tongue.

      “You don’t want to be out there? At the party?” she asked. Robert poured himself a drink and then, to her surprise, clinked his glass against hers as he sat down on the sofa, so close she could feel the warmth of him. Though she had touched him a dozen times that night—when he had walked her down the stairs, when they had danced, his hand against the small of her back—this felt blushingly intimate.

      “Not tonight. Those girls are tiring. All they do is gossip and talk about dresses and marriage. I’d rather talk to you, Margie.”

      “Thank you,” Margie said, dazzled by the compliment, small as it was.

      “So did you enjoy the ball?”

      “Very much so,” Margie said with a smile, and it all came back to her. The discomfort she had felt at the shock of the party had faded, the light-headedness from the alcohol was blurring into something quieter, a buoyant contentment, and when she stretched her feet out, she could see the roses marching down the front of her dress and the toes of her pretty satin slippers. And even if Robert were simply biding his time with her, she could pretend it was something else, and no one would ever have to know.

      “When do you go back to school?”

      “Not for ages and ages,” Margie said. She lifted her arms over her head and stretched. The fire and the champagne were making her toasty, and she let the coverlet slip down into her lap.

      “I’m leaving for Europe right after the New Year.”

      “Oh? Is it for work?”

      “God, no,” Robert said, and took an enormous slug of his drink. “I am on a quest, Margie, to avoid that particular responsibility for as long as possible.”

      “You don’t want to take over the business?”

      “Not even a little bit. What about you? You aren’t in some God-awful rush to get married and start popping out children and turn into your mother, are you?”

      “Goodness, no,” Margie said with a shudder, and took a large swig of her champagne in imitation of Robert, who laughed charmingly. “My mother is the last person I want to turn into.” And then, a little ashamed of herself for speaking ill of her mother aloud, she turned to him frantically. “You won’t tell her I said that, will you?”

      He smiled, his teeth blindingly white, and gave her a slow, raffish wink. “Not as long as you promise not to tell my father I’d rather die than take over the helm of Walsh Shipping. Right now they’re