The men were drinking inexhaustible quarter-bottles of champagne, the women dry martinis.
‘Moi, j’adore le “Dry”,’ a bright-faced girl at the next table said to her companion, too neat in his unseasonable tweeds, who gazed at her with moist brown eyes over the top of an expensive shooting-stick from Hermes, ‘fait avec du Gordon’s, bien entendu.’
‘D’accord, Daisy. Mais tu sais, un zeste de citron . . .’
Bond’s eye was caught by the tall figure of Mathis on the pavement outside, his face turned in animation to a darkhaired girl in grey. His arm was linked in hers, high up above the elbow, and yet there was a lack of intimacy in their appearance, an ironical chill in the girl’s profile, which made them seem two separate people rather than a couple. Bond waited for them to come through the street door into the bar, but for appearances’ sake continued to stare out of the window at the passers-by.
‘But surely it is Monsieur Bond?’ Mathis’s voice behind him was full of surprised delight. Bond, appropriately flustered, rose to his feet. ‘Can it be that you are alone? Are you awaiting someone? May I present my colleague, Mademoiselle Lynd? My dear, this is the gentleman from Jamaica with whom I had the pleasure of doing business this morning.’
Bond inclined himself with a reserved friendliness. ‘It would be a great pleasure,’ he addressed himself to the girl. ‘I am alone. Would you both care to join me?’ He pulled out a chair and while they sat down he beckoned to a waiter and despite Mathis’s expostulations insisted on ordering the drinks – a fine … l’eau for Mathis and a bacardi for the girl.
Mathis and Bond exchanged cheerful talk about the fine weather and the prospects of a revival in the fortunes of Royale-les-Eaux. The girl sat silent. She accepted one of Bond’s cigarettes, examined it and then smoked it appreciatively and without affectation, drawing the smoke deeply into her lungs with a little sigh and then exhaling it casually through her lips and nostrils. Her movements were economical and precise with no trace of self-consciousness.
Bond felt her presence strongly. While he and Mathis talked, he turned from time to time towards her, politely including her in the conversation, but adding up the impressions recorded by each glance.
Her hair was very black and she wore it cut square and low on the nape of the neck, framing her face to below the clear and beautiful line of her jaw. Although it was heavy and moved with the movements of her head, she did not constantly pat it back into place, but let it alone. Her eyes were wide apart and deep blue and they gazed candidly back at Bond with a touch of ironical disinterest which, to his annoyance, he found he would like to shatter, roughly. Her skin was lightly sun-tanned and bore no trace of makeup except on her mouth which was wide and sensual. Her bare arms and hands had a quality of repose and the general impression of restraint in her appearance and movements was carried even to her fingernails which were unpainted and cut short. Round her neck she wore a plain gold chain of wide flat links and on the fourth finger of the right hand a broad topaz ring. Her medium-length dress was of grey soie sauvage with a square-cut bodice, lasciviously tight across her fine breasts. The skirt was closely pleated and flowered down from a narrow, but not a thin, waist. She wore a three-inch, handstitched black belt. A handstitched black sabretache rested on the chair beside her, together with a wide cart-wheel hat of gold straw, its crown encircled by a thin black velvet ribbon which tied at the back in a short bow. Her shoes were square-toed of plain black leather.
Bond was excited by her beauty and intrigued by her composure. The prospect of working with her stimulated him. At the same time he felt a vague disquiet. On an impulse he touched wood.
Mathis had noticed Bond’s preoccupation. After a time he rose.
‘Forgive me,’ he said to the girl, ‘while I telephone to the Dubernes. I must arrange my rendezvous for dinner tonight. Are you sure you won’t mind being left to your own devices this evening?’