IX
They were waiting for him and incomplete without him. He was still the incalculable element; Miss Warren and the young Italian wore their anticipation as obviously as Nicole. The salon of the hotel, a room of fabled acoustics, was stripped for dancing but there was a small gallery of Englishwomen of a certain age, with neckbands, dyed hair and faces powdered pinkish gray; and of American women of a certain age, with snowy-white transformations, black dresses and lips of cherry red. Miss Warren and Marmora were at a corner table, Nicole was diagonally across from them forty yards away, and as d**k arrived he heard her voice:
‘Can you hear me? I’m speaking naturally.’
‘Perfectly,’
‘Hello, Doctor Diver.’
‘What’s this?’
‘You realize the people in the centre of the floor can’t hear wha
