Page 445 - tender-is-the-night
P. 445
there is will be paid before the magistrate tomorrow—by
messenger.’
Before the officer spoke Dick saw by his expression that it
would be all right. The man said hesitantly, ‘I have made no
entry because they have no Cartes d’Identité. I must see—
give me the money.’
An hour later Dick and M. Gausse dropped the women
by the Majestic Hotel, where Lady Caroline’s chauffeur slept
in her landaulet.
‘Remember,’ said Dick, ‘you owe Monsieur Gausse a hun-
dred dollars a piece.’
‘All right,’ Mary agreed, ‘I’ll give him a check to-mor-
row—and something more.’
‘Not I!’ Startled, they all turned to Lady Caroline, who,
now entirely recovered, was swollen with righteousness.
‘The whole thing was an outrage. By no means did I autho-
rize you to give a hundred dollars to those people.’
Little Gausse stood beside the car, his eyes blazing sud-
denly.
‘You won’t pay me?’
‘Of course she will,’ said Dick.
Suddenly the abuse that Gausse had once endured as a
bus boy in London flamed up and he walked through the
moonlight up to Lady Caroline.
He whipped a string of condemnatory words about her,
and as she turned away with a frozen laugh, he took a step
after her and swiftly planted his little foot in the most cele-
brated of targets. Lady Caroline, taken by surprise, flung up
her hands like a person shot as her sailor-clad form sprawled
445