Point Counter Point - Aldous Huxley [77]
‘Mother,’ she called, ‘mother!’ Her tone was urgent and agonized.
‘What is it?’ Mrs. Logan answered anxiously out of the dark. She sat up and fumbled for the, electric switch by the bed. ‘What is it?’ The light went on with a click. ‘What is it, my darling?’
Polly threw herself down on the bed and hid her face against her mother’s knees. ‘Oh, mother, if you knew what a terrible floater I made with Lady Edward! If you knew! I forgot to tell you.’
Mrs. Logan was almost angry that her anxiety had been for nothing. When one has put forth all one’s strength to raise what seems an enormous weight, it is annoying to find that the dumb-bell is made of cardboard and could have been lifted between two fingers. ‘Was it necessary to come and wake me up out of my first sleep to tell me?’ she asked crossly.
Polly looked up at her mother ‘I’m sorry, mother,’ she said repentantly. ‘But if you knew what an awful floater it was!’
Mrs. Logan could not help laughing.
‘I couldn’t have gone to sleep if I hadn’t told you,’ Polly went on.
‘And I mayn’t go to sleep until you have.’ Mrs. Logan tried to be severe and sarcastic. But her eyes, her smile betrayed her.
Polly took her mother’s hand and kissed it. ‘I knew you wouldn’t mind,’ she said.
‘I do mind. Very much.’
‘It’s no good trying to bluff me,’ said Polly. ‘But now I must tell you about the floater.’
Mrs. Logan heaved the parody of a sigh of resignation and, pretending to be overwhelmed with sleepiness, closed her eyes. Polly talked. It was after halfpast two before she went back to her room. They had discussed, not only the floater and Lady Edward, but the whole party, and everyone who was there. Or rather Polly had discussed and Mrs. Logan had listened, had laughed and laughingly protested when her daughter’s comments became too exuberantly highspirited.
‘But Polly, Polly,’ she had said, ‘you really mustn’t say that people look like elephants.’
‘But Mrs. Betterton does look like an elephant,’ Polly had replied. ‘It’s the truth.’ And in her dramatic stage whisper she had added, rising from fancy to still more preposterous fancy: ‘Even her nose is like a trunk.’
‘But she’s got a short nose.’
Polly’s whisper had become more gruesome. ‘An amputated trunk. They bit it off when she was a baby. Like puppies’ tails.’
CHAPTER XII
For valued clients, Sbisa never closed his restaurant. They could sit there, in spite of the law, and consume intoxicating poisons as far into the small hours as they liked. An extra waiter came on at midnight to attend to the valued clients who wished to break the law. Old Sbisa saw to it that their value, to him, was very high. Alcohol was cheaper at the Ritz than at Sbisa