Cleo shuffled out and back, her eyes gleaming. "He say he'll be delighted an' so'll his friend."
"Curtain, Miss Claudel," yelled the call boy.
"That means I've fifteen minutes. Dick Forrest is a cute boy from Yale. You can wear my white beaded. It will look better on you. White makes me look pale. I'll wear that old grey chiffon. I want you to enjoy your first night out as a real New Yorker. To tell you the truth, I got busy about a job for you because I don't think you're very practical, and I didn't want you to go back to Congress and leave me all alone."
Chapter 23
THE EYE IS A SMALL BULB
On a Sunday in mid-September, and in the middle of painting, Paul Vermillion received a telephone call from Raymond Figente whom he had not seen for a month.
"I suppose it's no news to you that Simone is in town?" said Figente, consumed with curiosity.
"How is she?" Vermillion asked as noncommittally as possible.
"She's looking extremely well. She asked for your telephone number but oddly enough I had mislaid it. I said I would tell you she was at the Athenée."
"Thanks," Vermillion said dryly. Figente never could resist conniving in two directions at once.
"Of course you've seen in the newspapers she opens at the Club Chennonceaux in two weeks?"
"I must have missed it," he replied, genuinely surprised that her name in print could have escaped his notice.
He debated telephoning Simone. To his surprise he still wanted her, that urge apparently unaware of his decision in Brussels nine months ago to end the relationship. Sooner or later he'd have to face the inevitable theatrics of their first meeting since he'd walked out on her while she was screaming from a deliberate burn cooperatively provided by the Delft porcelain stove against which she had thrown herself to arouse his pity. Christ, what a voice! In Venice
