Christmas Holiday by W. Somerset Maugham Page A

last she gave in as she always did, but she insisted that he should have a second pair of trousers, she said it was always the trousers that grew shabby first and it would be an economy in the end if he had two pairs. Robert went out and said he wouldn’t be in to lunch. My mother-in-law went out soon afterwards to do hermarketing and the moment I was alone I seized the paper. I saw that an English bookmaker, called Teddie Jordan, had been found dead in his flat. He had been stabbed in the back. I had often heard Robert speak of him. I knew it was he who had killed him. I had such a sudden pain in my heart that I thought I should die. I was terrified. I don’t know how long I sat there. I couldn’t move. At last I heard a key in the door and I knew it was Madame Berger coming in again. I put the paper back where she’d left it and went on with my work.”
    Lydia gave a deep sigh. They had not got to the restaurant till one or after and it was two by the time they finished supper. When they came in the tables were full and there was a dense crowd at the bar. Lydia had been talking a long time and little by little people had been going. The crowd round the bar thinned out. There were only two persons sitting at it now and only one table besides theirs was occupied. The waiters were getting restive.
    “I think we ought to be going,” said Charley. “I’m sure they want to be rid of us.”
    At that moment the people at the other table got up to go. The woman who brought their coats from the cloak-room brought Charley’s too and put it on the table beside him. He called for the bill.
    “I suppose there’s some place we could go to now?”
    “We could go to Montmartre. Graaf’s is open all night. I’m terribly tired.”
    “Well, if you like I’ll drive you home.”
    “To Alexey and Evgenia’s? I can’t go there to-night.He’ll be drunk. He’ll spend the whole night abusing Evgenia for bringing up the children to be what they are and weeping over his own sorrows. I won’t go to the Sérail. We’d better go to Graaf’s. At least it’s warm there.”
    She seemed so woebegone, and really so exhausted, that Charley with hesitation made a proposal. He remembered that Simon had told him that he could take anyone into the hotel.
    “Look here, I’ve got two beds in my room. Why don’t you come back with me there?”
    She gave him a suspicious look, but he shook his head smiling.
    “Just to sleep, I mean,” he added. “You know, I’ve had a journey to-day and what with the excitement and one thing and another I’m pretty well all in.”
    “All right.”
    There was no cab to be found when they got out into the street, but it was only a little way to the hotel and they walked. A sleepy night watchman opened the door for them and took them upstairs in the lift. Lydia took off her hat. She had a broad, white brow. He had not seen her hair before. It was short, curling round the neck, and pale brown. She kicked off her shoes and slipped out of her dress. When Charley came back from the bathroom, having got into his pyjamas, she was not only in bed but asleep. He got into his own bed and put out the light. They had not exchanged a word since they left the restaurant.
    Thus did Charley spend his first night in Paris.

iv
    I T WAS LATE when he woke. For a moment he had no notion where he was. Then he saw Lydia. They had not drawn the curtains and a gray light filtered through the shutters. The room with its pitchpine furniture looked squalid. She lay on her back in the twin bed with her eyes open, staring up at the dingy ceiling. Charley glanced at his watch. He felt shy of the strange woman in the next bed.
    “It’s nearly twelve,” he said. “We’d better just have a cup of coffee and then I’ll take you to lunch somewhere if you like.”
    She looked at him with grave, but not unkindly, eyes.
    “I’ve been watching you sleep. You were sleeping as peacefully, as profoundly, as a child. You had such a look of