Lou Witt had had her own way so long,that by the age of
twenty-five she didn't know where she was. Having one's own
way landed one completely at sea.
   To be sure for a while she had failed in her grand love affair
with Rico. And then she had had something really to despair
about. But even that had worked out as she wanted. Rico had
come back to her,and was dutifully married to her. And now,
when she was twenty-five and he was three months older,they
were a charming married couple. He flirted with other women
still,to be sure. He wouldn't be the handsome Rico if he didn't.
But she had 'got' him. Oh yes! You had only to see the uneasy
backward glance at her,from his big blue eyes:just like a horse
that is edging away from its master:to know how completely he
was mastered.
She,with her odd little museau,not exactly pretty,but very
attractive;and her quaint air of playing at being well-bred,in
a sort of charade game;and her queer familiarity with foreign
cities and foreign languages;and the lurking sense of being an
outsider everywhere,like a sort of gipsy,who is at home anywhere
and nowhere:all this made up her charm and her failure.
She didn't quite belong.
   Of course she was American: Louisiana family,moved down
to Texas. And she was moderately rich,with no close relations
except her mother. But she had been sent to school in France
when she was twelve,and since she had finished school,she had
drifted from Paris to Palermo,Biarritz to Vienna and back via
Munich to London,then down again to Rome. Only fleeting trips
to her America.
   So what sort of American was she,after all?
   And what sort of European was she either? She didn't 'belong'
anywhere. Perhaps most of all in Rome,among the artists and
the embassy people.
   It was in Rome she had met Rico. He was an Australian,son
of a government official in Melbourne,who had been made a
baronet. So one day Rico would be Sir Henry,as he was the
only son. Meanwhile he floated round Europe on a very small
allowance - his father wasn't rich in capital - and was being
an artist.
   They met in Rome when they were twenty-two,and had a
love affair in Capri. Rico was handsome,elegant,but mostly
he had spots of paint on his trousers and he ruined a necktie
pulling it off. He behaved in a most floridly elegant fashion,
fascinating to the Italians. But at the same time he was canny and
shrewd and sensible as any young poser could be and,on principle
good-hearted,anxious. He was anxious for his future,
and anxious for his place in the world,he was poor,and suddenly
wasteful in spite of all his tension of economy,and suddenly
spiteful in spite of all his ingratiating efforts,and suddenly
ungrateful in spite of all his burden of gratitude,and suddenly rude
in spite of all his good manners,and suddenly detestable in spite
of all his suave,courtier-like amiability.
   He was fascinated by Lou's quaint aplomb,her experiences,
her 'knowledge',her gamine knowingness,her aloneness,her
pretty clothes that were sometimes an utter failure,and her
southern 'drawl' that was sometimes so irritating. That sing-song
which was so American. Yet she used no Americanisms at
all,except when she lapsed into her odd spasms of acid irony,
when she was very American indeed!
   And she was fascinated by Rico. They played to each other
like two butterflies at one flower. They pretended to be very poor
in Rome - he was poor: and very rich in Naples. Everybody
stared their eyes out at them. And they had that love affair in
Capri.
   But they reacted badly on each other's nerves. She became ill.
Her mother appeared. He couldn't stand Mrs Witt,and Mrs
Witt couldn't stand him. There was a terrible fortnight. Then
Lou was popped into a convent nursing-home in Umbria,and
Rico dashed off to Paris. Nothing would stop him. He must go
back to Australia.
   He went to Melbourne,and while there his father died,leaving
him a baronet's title and an income still very moderate. Lou
visited America once more,as the strangest of strange lands to
her. She came away disheartened,panting for Europe,and of
course,doomed to meet Rico again.
They couldn't get away from one another,even though in the
course of their rather restrained correspondence he informed her
that he was 'probably' marrying a very dear girl,friend of his
childhood,only daughter of one of the oldest families in Victoria.
not saying much.
   He didn't commit the probability,but reappeared in Paris,
wanting to paint his head off,terribly inspired by Cezanne and
by old Renoir. He dined at the Rotonde with Lou and Mrs Witt,
who,with her queer democratic New Orleans sort of conceit
looked round the drinking-hall with savage contempt,and at
Rico as part of the show. 'Certainly',she said,'when these people
here have got any money,they fall in love on a full stomach.
And when they've got no money,they fall in love with a full
pocket. I never was in a more disgusting place. They take their
love like some people take after-dinner pills.'
   She would watch with her arching,full,strong grey eyes,sitting
there erect and silent in her well-bought American clothes.
And then she would deliver some such charge of grape-shot.
Rico always writhed.