Maisie’s address on my card: ‘Introducing Lieutenant Wheeler, A. E. F.’ That’s all you’ll need. If you should get to London before I do, don’t hesitate. Call on her at once. Present this card, and she’ll receive you.”
Claude thanked him and put the card in his pocketbook, while Victor lit a cigarette. “I haven’t forgotten that you’re dining with us at the Savoy, if we happen in London together. If I’m there, you can always find me. Her address is mine. It will really be a great thing for you to meet a woman like Maisie. She’ll be nice to you, because you’re my friend.” He went on to say that she had done everything in the world for him; had left her husband and given up her friends on his account. She now had a studio flat in Chelsea, where she simply waited his coming and dreaded his going. It was an awful life for her. She entertained other officers, of course, old acquaintances; but it was all camouflage. He was the man.
Victor went so far as to produce her picture, and Claude gazed without knowing what to say at a large moon-shaped face with heavy-lidded, weary eyes, the neck clasped by a pearl collar, the shoulders bare to the matronly swell of the bosom. There was not a line or wrinkle in that smooth expanse of flesh, but from the heavy mouth and chin, from the very shape of the face, it was easy to see that she was quite old enough to be Victor’s mother. Across the photograph was written in a large splashy hand, À mon aigle! Had Victor been delicate enough to leave him in any doubt, Claude would have preferred to believe that his relations with this lady were wholly of a filial nature.
“Women like her simply don’t exist in your part of the world,” the aviator murmured, as he snapped the photograph
