Part 1 — XI

A WAITER came through the blue-distempered glass doors of the restaurant and familiarly handed Lewis a visiting card between his fingers (the summer service of the hotel).

Banque Apostolatos

Trieste.

Someone was asking to see him. He was just about to say that he was not in when he changed his mind.

It was she.

"I come to see you as a neighbour. I am in the annexe."

Lewis greeted her, congratulating himself on the unexpectedness of the thing. Then he said suddenly in a formal voice:

"What have you got to do with the Apostolatos Bank?"

She replied, composedly, that her name was Apostolatos, Irene Apostolatos, that the Apostolatoses of Trieste were her first cousins and that they managed the bank between the three of them. The London Apostolatoses were her uncles; the New York Apostolatoses (who had married, one, a Lazarides of Marseilles, and the other a Damaschino of Alexandria) were her great uncles. In fact, they all belonged to the same family and came originally from the Greek Islands.

"What is the Apostolatos Bank doing here?" asked Lewis, as though he were unaware of the patient efforts of the Greek banking group to lay hands on the mineral products of the Mediterranean. He well knew the reputation for greed and stability held by this old house, which dated from the Greek Independence.

"Didn't Pastafina tell you that we held an option on the San Lucido deposits after the expiry of yours? I was alone at Trieste when they put it up to us, eight days ago. It interested me deeply; one of my cousins was at Vichy, the other in Constantinople; I took a fast Lloyd boat going to Malta and came on here."

"But now that I have signed?"

"I go back to-morrow; so there's no time to be lost. I came to see you, monsieur, to propose to buy you out. What do you want for the deposits?"

Lewis could not see her properly as she stood there in the light of a garden lamp round which the butterflies were hovering and casting flickering shadows on her face. Her dress was of that stiff yellow muslin which is put round chandeliers to keep away the flies. Lewis smiled as he thought of the lovely soft dresses which Welsm was producing that year in Paris. Nevertheless, as she stood there before him, her legs slightly apart, her stomach forward, her figure erect, she looked like a figure of "Victory."

"Do you mind if I put out the light? It attracts the mosquitoes," he said.

Suddenly they found themselves in the gloom, just a man and a woman on whose races the uncertain light traced latticed patterns. The scenery had changed just as much as they had. The mountain spurs projected violently out of the darkness, leaving the ravines which separated them still plunged in it. In the square in front of the church, and lower down in the Giardini, the town bands (it being Thursday) were playing two different airs from the same Verdi opera. A diadem of acetylene flares at the prows of the fishing boats quivered on the sea. Now and then one of the beams was broken by a flash of darkness; a fisherman's arm brandishing a harpoon.

They seemed to be suspended between the dark masses of the sky and of the earth, in a double lighting, one a geometrical light along the pavements, and the other an irregular poetic light in the sky.

She went on:—

"The Franco-African Bank cannot develop deposits like those of San Lucido, which require the very latest machinery plant and highly technical advisors. You will be compelled either to sell out or to float a new company. Perhaps you have already decided to do this? I know that if you don't it won't be for want of capital, but still.... Would you like to share? To come to an agreement or, as we say in Greek, a 'symphony.' Would you let us subscribe thirty per cent, of the capital, but with shares carrying plural votes? You will always be wanting lire here, and Trieste is a place whose co-operation is not to be despised."

"Especially as the Italian exchange brokerage is particularly in your favour, being supported by the purchaser to the extent of one-quarter per cent.

"We are not Italians, monsieur," she replied with dignity, "but Greeks, and our brokerage is the English brokerage."

Lewis looked at her standing there in a kind of phosphorescence. He thought, until he saw her smile, that nothing could be brighter than her face; a big Grecian face with strong lines, like the too modern cameos in the shops of the Vomero. A straight, honest mouth, a mouth made for truth. Eyes whose gaze one could not imagine having to be lowered, and which were steadier and saw further than the eyes of women. Black hair plastered down like that of her Tanagra sisters. And for all that a certain eighteen thirty romanticism about her forehead....

"At any rate," she went on insistently, "would you be willing to dispose of a part of your concessions to us? We would be able to bring you co-operation of the very finest kind in exchange."

She spoke with a precision which contradicted all that is said about the music of words and all that is known of language; an incomparably pure French, that is to say, a perfect use of idiom, courteous, clearly articulated and rich in metallic nasal sounds, without the least foreign accent, without any of those slipshod constructions, fashionable clippings and slovenliness of everyday speech. Powerful without being violent, and full of dignity.

Whilst she was talking Lewis kept asking himself whether he would ever be able to put to her those questions which he was accustomed to put to women with that familiar and chaffing air of authority which he found so successful. But he felt that she would either not reply or would tell him the honest truth (is there any other kind?), and he dared not risk it.

For the first time he had the impression of having before him a person who was completely confident, and that any opinion she might issue was fully guaranteed.

Nevertheless, in the darkness her voice became warmer, softened a little, and betrayed a certain wilfulness.

Lewis then realized that he had not heard a word she had said, and had only been listening to the sound of her voice; he had to give her some reply.

The jasmin suddenly made its double perfume felt.

"I am very sorry, madame," he said, "but everything you suggest is impossible. We have decided to develop the property ourselves."