The girl sat on a gray divan, pushing away a stack of French and Austrian magazines to make a place for me beside her. Through an open door I could see the painted foot of a Spanish bed, a short stretch of purple counterpane, and half of a purple-curtained window.
“His Excellency was very sorry,” the girl began, and stopped.
I was looking—not staring—at the big leather chair. I knew she had stopped because I was looking at it, so I wouldn’t take my eyes away.
“Vasilije,” she said, more distinctly than was really necessary, “was very sorry he had to postpone this afternoon’s appointment. The assassination of the President’s secretary—you heard of it?—made us put everything else aside for the moment.”
“Oh, yes, that fellow Mahmoud—” slowly shifting my eyes from the leather chair to her. “Found out who killed him?”
Her black-ringed, black-centered eyes seemed to study me from a distance while she shook her head, jiggling the nearly black curls.
“Probably Einarson,” I said.
“You haven’t been idle.” Her lower lids lifted when she smiled, giving her eyes a twinkling effect.
The servant Marya came in with wine and fruit, put them on a small table beside the divan, and went away. The girl poured wine and offered me cigarettes in a silver box. I passed them up for one of my own. She smoked a king-size Egyptian cigarette—big as a cigar. It accentuated the smallness of her face and hand—which is probably why she favored that size.
“What sort of revolution is this they’ve sold my boy?” I asked.
“It was a very nice one until it died.”