Evening star., 1936-11-01
Mcoozise Section

I'm sorry for her, but l shall leave her
me when say can't help what I'm doing.
&" i think you're completely off your mental
balance, / retorted, and so we went on wran-
CLING till at last he asked. more or less, what
the hell had it got to do with me and if
didn't want to help him, didn't have to.
This seemed truthful summing up of the
position, so l said. all right, let's leave it at
that.
can get the porter of any of the big
hotels to oblige me - they all know Hun
garian, he added, beginning to walk off.
"Of course answered, and if you're
driving that way. you might drop me at the
Bristol
80 we packed together in the Ford Car
which was luxurious thing to have in Vienna
just after the War. and within half mile
very awkward thing had happened. Bryce
was nervous and was perhaps driving less
carefully; he certainly wasn't drunk, as was
the man we knocked down. A fat man with
gold teeth. Badly injured, too it was all
rather dreadful. But the worst thing was the
discovery at the hospital of who he was. The
husband of the Hungarian soubrette! hadn't
even known she'd had husband - Bryce
had forgotten to mention such an apparently
unimportant detail!'
perhaps may mention, for example, the
defomH that has taken place tn the service Of
certain South American loans, and the efforts
that International banking circles haze been
exerting TO reach an agreement satisfactory TO
all parties"
- 'Of course you can imagine that the situa-
ton changed good deal after that. You can't
elope with the wife of the man you've just
half killed in street accident. It isn't good
taste. and besides, the police might suspect
something deliberate. Bryce realized that.
How the woman took it don't know, for
didn't see her. Bryce said her husband had
ill-treated her and she didn't care for him. He
was. incidentally, a mandolinist in the cabaret
troupe.
I'VE spent week enquiring at the hospital
and doing what we could for him, and then.
when he died. the police spent another week
or so investigating from their angle. 1t was
revealed that the fellow had been drunk. and
Bryce was exonerated from all blame. But
the whole business was distressing, neverthe-
less. Bryce didn't make complete confidant
of me, but gathered that the troupe were
moving on to some other city and that after
an interval, say month or so, he would 60
there and pick up his romance where, so to
say, he had left it."
a.. set ourselves to the task Of revisitying
the arteries through which the commercial 0c-
tigities of the Worh must function
But in the meantime, Mrs. Vanderfeld,
having read about the motor accident in the
newspapers, insisted on returning from Salz-
burg to be with her husband through the
difficult time. He couldn't stop her, and
maybe he was glad to have her - she was a
sweet little thing Or maybe he wasn't glad,
for the infatuation certainly persisted
didn't see great deal of him, but when
did he looked tired, nervous worn out after
sleepless nights suppose an infatuation of
that kind is rather like a physical fever
but rare fever fortunately - I'm sure most
people never catch it. Don't you think it's
rather like that?"
answered: "If you want to know my
honest opinion, think the emotion Bryce
felt for that woman was love. You can call it
fever or infatuation or anything you like but
whatever it is, it's whatever Romeo felt for
Juliet"
Robson laughed. Bryce as Romeo is a
good notion! And Romeo hadn't wife! And
l. l. l. Il A.