She hoped the country house would be within sight of the sea, and that the
family garage would run to a comfortable little town-car for her personal
use when she went shopping in Bond Street, or to pay calls or leave cards,
or to concerts and matinees....
At about this stage her chateaux en Espagne began to rock upon their
foundations; a seismic phenomenon due to the appearance of Mama Therese and
Papa Dupont, coming from zinc and kitchen for their dinner, which meal they
habitually consumed in the cafe when the evening rush was over, the tables
undressed, and the establishment had settled down to drowse away the dull
hours till closing time.
Thus reminded that it was nine o'clock or thereabouts of a stuffy evening
in a stodgy world where nothing ever happened that hadn't wearily happened
the day before and the day before that and so back to the beginning of
Time, and wasn't scheduled tediously to continue happening to-morrow and
the day after and so on to the end of Eternity, Sofia sighed and shook
herself and put away the vanity of dreams.
But her beauty, as she sat brooding, was as sultry as the night.
In the rear of the room Mama Therese and Papa Dupont wrangled sourly over
their food; not with impassioned rancour but in the natural order of
things--as others might discuss the book of the moment or the play of the
year or scandal or Charlie Chaplin or the thundering fiasco of
Versailles--these two discussed each other's failings with utmost candour
and freedom of expression: handling their subjects without gloves; never
hesitating to touch upon topics not commonly mentioned in civil intercourse
or to use the apt, unprintable word; never dreaming of politely terming a
damned old hoe a spade; tossing the ball of recrimination to and fro with
masterly ease.
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