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She smiled. «Every woman likes to hear about herself. Tell me, but make it sound
true, otherwise I shall stop listening.»
«I think you're a young girl, younger than you pretend to be, younger than you dress. I
think you were carefully brought up, in a red-carpet sort of way, and then the red carpet
was suddenly jerked away from under your feet and you were thrown more or less into
the street. So you picked yourself up and started to work your own way back to the red
carpet you had got used to. You were probably fairly ruthless about it. You had to be.
You only had a woman's weapons and you probably used them pretty coolly. I expect
you used your body. It would be a wonderful asset. But in using it to get what you
wanted, your sensibilities had to be put aside. I don't expect they're very far
underground. They certainly haven't atrophied. They've just lost their voice because
you wouldn't listen to them. You couldn't afford to listen to them if you were to get back
on that red carpet and have the things you wanted. And now you've got the things.»
Bond touched the hand that lay on the banquette between them. «And perhaps you've
almost had enough of them.» He laughed. «But I mustn't get too serious. Now about
the smaller things. You know all about them, but just for the record, you're beautiful,
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sexy, provocative, independent, self-willed, quick-tempered, and cruel.» She looked at
him thoughtfully. «There's nothing very clever about all that. I told you most of it. You
know something about Italian women. But why do you say I'm cruel?»
«If I was gambling and I took a knock like Largo did and I had my woman, a woman,
sitting near me watching, and she didn't give me one word of comfort or
encouragement I would say she was being cruel. Men don't like failing in front of their
women.»
She said impatiently, «I've had to sit there too often and watch him show off. I wanted
you to win. I cannot pretend. You didn't mention my only virtue. It's honesty. I love to
the hilt and I hate to the hilt. At the present time, with Emilio, I am halfway. Where we
were lovers, we are now good friends who understand each other. When I told you he
was my guardian, I was telling a white lie. I am his kept woman. I am a bird in a gilded
cage. I am fed up with my cage and tired of my bargain.» She looked at Bond
defensively. «Yes, it is cruel for Emilio. But it is also human. You can buy the outside of
the body, but you cannot buy what is inside what people call the heart and the soul.
But Emilio knows that. He wants women for use. Not for love. He has had thousands in
this way. He knows where we both stand. He is realistic. But it is becoming more
difficult to keep to my bargain to, to, let's call it sing for my supper.»
She stopped abruptly. She said, «Give me some more champagne. All this silly
talking has made me thirsty. And I would like a packet of Players» she laughed «
Please, as they say in the advertisements. I am fed up with just smoking smoke. I need
my Hero.» Bond bought a packet from the cigarette girl. He said, «What's that about a
hero?»
She had entirely changed. Her bitterness had gone, and the lines of strain on her
face. She had softened. She was suddenly a girl out for the evening. «Ah, you don't
know! My one true love! The man of my dreams. The sailor on the front of the packet of
Players. You have never thought about him as I have.» She came closer to him on the
banquette and held the packet under his eyes. «You don't understand the romance of
this wonderful picture one of the great masterpieces of the world. This man» she
pointed »was the first man I ever sinned with. I took him into the woods, I loved him in
the dormitory, I spent nearly all my pocket money on him. In exchange he introduced
me to the great world outside the Cheltenham Ladies College. He grew me up. He put
me at ease with boys of my own age. He kept me company when I was lonely or afraid
of being young. He encouraged me, gave me assurance. Have you never thought of
the romance behind this picture? You see nothing, yet the whole of England is there!
Listen.» She took his arm eagerly. «This is the story of Hero, the name on his cap
badge. At first he was a young man, a powder monkey or whatever they called it, in that
sailing ship behind his right ear. It was a hard time for him. Weevils in the biscuits, hit
with marlinspikes and ropes' ends and things, sent up aloft to the top of all that rigging
where the flag flies. But he persevered. He began to grow a mustache. He was fair-
haired and rather too pretty.» She giggled. «He may even have had to fight for his
virtue or whatever men call it, among all those hammocks. But you can see from his
face that line of concentration between his eyes and from his fine head, that he was a
man to get on.» She paused and swallowed a glass of champagne. The dimples were
now deep holes in her cheeks. «Are you listening to me? You are not bored having to
listen about my hero?»
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«I'm only jealous. Go on.»
«So he went all over the world to India, China, Japan, America. He had many girls
and many fights with cutlasses and fists. He wrote home regularly to his mother and to
a married sister who lived at Dover. They wanted him to come home and meet a nice
girl and get married. But he wouldn't. You see, he was keeping himself for a dream girl
who looked rather like me. And then» she laughed «the first steamships came in and
he was transferred to an ironclad that's the picture of it on the right. And by now he
was a bosun, whatever that is, and very important. And he saved up from his pay and
instead of going out fighting and having girls he grew that lovely beard, to make himself
look older and more important, and he set to with a needle and colored threads to make
that picture of himself. You can see how well he did it his first windjammer and his last
ironclad with the lifebuoy as a frame. He only finished it when he decided to leave the
Navy. He didn't really like steamships. In the prime of life, don't you agree? And even
then he ran out of gold thread to finish the rope round the lifebuoy, so he just had to tail
it off. There, you can see on the right where the rope crosses the blue line. So he came
back home on a beautiful golden evening after a wonderful life in the Navy and it was
so sad and beautiful and romantic that he decided that he would put the beautiful
evening into another picture. So he bought a pub at Bristol with his savings and in the
mornings before the pub opened he worked away until he had finished and there you
can see the little sailing ship that brought him home from Suez with his duffel bag full of
silks and seashells and souvenirs carved out of wood. And that's the Needles
Lighthouse beckoning him in to harbor on that beautiful calm evening. Mark you» she
frowned »I don't like that sort of bonnet thing he's wearing for a hat, and I'd have liked
him to have put `H.M.S.' before the `Hero,' but you can see that would have made it
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