The Labors of Hercules - Agatha Christie [98]
Poirot observed the frescoes more closely. On the wall facing him Orpheus and his jazz band played, while Eurydice looked hopefully towards the grill. On the opposite wall Osiris and Isis seemed to be throwing an Egyptian underworld boating party. On the third wall some bright young people were enjoying mixed bathing in a state of Nature.
“The Country of the Young,” explained the Countess and added in the same breath, completing her introductions: “And this is my little Alice.”
Poirot bowed to the second occupant of the table, a severe-looking girl in a check coat and skirt. She wore horn-rimmed glasses.
“She is very, very clever,” said Countess Rossakoff. “She has a degree and she is a psychologist and she knows all the reasons why lunatics are lunatics! It is not, as you might think, because they are mad! No, there are all sorts of other reasons! I find that very peculiar.”
The girl called Alice smiled kindly but a little disdainfully. She asked the Professor in a firm voice if he would like to dance. He appeared flattered but dubious.
“My dear young lady, I fear I only waltz.”
“This is a waltz,” said Alice patiently.
They got up and danced. They did not dance well.
The Countess Rossakoff sighed. Following out a train of thought of her own, she murmured, “And yet she is not really bad-looking. . . .”
“She does not make the most of herself,” said Poirot judicially.
“Frankly,” cried the Countess, “I cannot understand the young people of nowadays. They do not try any more to please—always, in my youth, I tried—the colours that suited me—a little padding in the frocks—the corset laced tight round the waist—the hair, perhaps, a more interesting shade—”
She pushed back the heavy Titian tresses from her forehead—
it was undeniable that she, at least, was still trying and trying
hard!
“To be content with what Nature has given you, that—that is stupid! It is also arrogant! The little Alice she writes pages of long words about Sex, but how often, I ask you, does a man suggest to her that they should go to Brighton for the weekend? It is all long words and work, and the welfare of the workers, and the future of the world. It is very worthy, but I ask you, is it gay? And look, I ask you, how drab these young people have made the world! It is all regulations and prohibitions! Not so when I was young.”
“That reminds me, how is your son, Madame?” At the last moment he substituted “son,” for “little boy,” remembering that twenty years had passed.
The Countess’s face lit up with enthusiastic motherhood.
“The beloved angel! So big now, such shoulders, so handsome! He is in America. He builds there—bridges, banks, hotels, department stores, railways, anything the Americans want!”
Poirot looked slightly puzzled.
“He is then an engineer? Or an architect?”
“What does it matter?” demanded the Countess. “He is adorable! He is wrapped up in iron girders, and machinery, and things called stresses. The kind of thing that I have never understood in the least. But we adore each other—always we adore each other! And so for his sake I adore the little Alice. But yes, they are engaged. They meet on a plane or a boat or a train, and they fall in love, all in the midst of talking about the welfare of the workers. And when she comes to London she comes to see me and I take her to my heart.” The Countess clasped her arms across her vast bosom, “And I say—‘You and Niki love each other—so I too love you—but if you love him why do you leave him in America?’ And she talks about her ‘job’ and the book she is writing, and her career, and frankly I do not understand, but I have always said: ‘One must be tolerant.’ ” She added all in one breath, “And what do you think, cher ami, of all this that I have imagined here?”
“It is very well imagined,” said Poirot, looking round him approvingly. “It is chic!”
The place was full and it had about it that unmistakable air of success which cannot be counterfeited. There were languid couples in full evening dress, Bohemians in corduroy trousers,