Basil’s glance followed Pauline’s through a sudden rift in the crowd to a woman who had just entered the gallery. She would have drawn glances anywhere. She was thin and supple as a whip, with a flashing, feline grace that made every gesture a work of art. Her black hair was parted in the middle, sleekly waved and brushed up in two little wings above either ear. Her face was a creamy oval, slashed with a long, thin mouth, stained scarlet. Her eyes were tilted and tawny, their golden spark heightened by gold and topaz earrings. She wore black with a leopard-skin cap far back on her dark head and a leopard-skin muff on one arm.
“Wanda Morley?” asked Basil.
“Yes. Fascinating, isn’t she?” There was a tart flavor to the speech. “And yet you can’t say just why,” went on Pauline. “It’s a sort of miracle. Hollywood has just established a formula for female allure—bleached hair, blubbery lips, tapering hips, and great udders that make you wonder about the butter-fat content per quart of human milk. Then along comes Wanda and breaks all the rules—dark hair, thin lips, no hips, and no bosom—and yet she makes all the finished products of the Hollywood beauty factories look as
“It’s probably a kind of suggestion,” agreed Basil, “based on self-suggestion. Some of the French psychologists have a theory that luck is a product of self-suggestion. Perhaps a woman is only beautiful when she believes in her own beauty sincerely without any conscious effort.”
“Then beauty is really vanity!”
Basil caught an undertone. “You don’t love Wanda, do you?”
“I hate her.” Pauline spoke as tonelessly as if she were saying:
“Any particular reason?”
“She’s an intellectual fraud, and she can’t act.”
“That might account for dislike but—hatred?”
“I was just being colloquial. But I don’t like her. She says things.”
“What sort of things?”
“Well, what I suppose you’d call catty things. At home I used to read novels where women talked like that; and I always thought the author was just using them as mouthpieces for his own spite, because I never knew any woman in real life who talked that way. But the minute I met Wanda I thought:
Basil’s thoughts reverted to Pauline’s home environment—secure, kindly, generous. He had never heard Pauline’s mother or sisters say anything spiteful or envious, or even gossipy. To a girl coming from that environment, it would be a shock to meet one of those simple-minded climbers who know no other form of social intercourse but war.
“I’m just as bad as she is now,” Pauline was saying. “You have to hit back.”
Wanda Morley had reached the buffet. People turned to look at her. Some smiled and spoke, but her responses were brief. She paused to speak to a man. Rod joined them. Wanda refused a cocktail with a gesture, took a cigarette from her bag and put it between her lips. Both men produced matches. She smiled impartially at either, hesitated a moment, then leaned toward Rod.
Pauline’s pencil traced a side view of Wanda, exaggerating her fluent suppleness so that it looked boneless and snaky. The line wavered. Pauline’s hand was shaking. She crossed out the imperfect sketch with slashing strokes.
“Black hair and golden eyes,” remarked Basil. “Rather like a puma. Those three would make a neat composition. You could call it
Rod was the stag—long-legged and fleet-looking, with a round, intense eye and a flaring nostril. The other man was the sheep—narrow forehead, pendulous nose, dull eyes set close together.
Pauline’s answering smile was cheerless. “Pumas prey on deer and sheep, don’t they?”
“That’s the point. Do you happen to know these victims?”
“The sheep is Leonard Martin. The stag is Rodney Tait. They’re both in Wanda’s company. Rod brought her here this afternoon. He’s supposed to be getting a cocktail for me now, but he seems to have forgotten all about it.”
“Can I—?”
“No, I don’t believe I want one after all.” There was a snap as the point of Pauline’s pencil broke. “She only does it to annoy because she knows it teases!”
“Does what?”
“What’s she’s doing now. Preying.”
