Nightwork

They all ate their lobster with relish and kept the waiter busy pouring from a seemingly inexhaustible store of bottles of exquisite white wine. I stole a look at the label on one of the bottles - Corton-Charlemagne - and noted it for future great occasions.

I kept silent, although I nodded gravely in agreement from time to time to show that I, too, belonged at the feast. I hesitated to talk, fearing that I somehow would betray my outsiderness, that a single uneasy word might sound a warning among the other guests, unmasking me as a visitor from the lower classes, contemplating revolution perhaps, the dangerous stain of the Hotel St Augustine, that I had up to now managed to hide, suddenly detectable.

There was dancing after dinner in a huge playroom in the basement. Eunice, who loved to dance, went from partner to partner, while I stood at the bar, drinking, looking at my watch, feeling gloomy and deprived. I had always been a hopeless dancer and had never enjoyed it and certainly wasn't going to make a show of myself on the floor among all those swooping, graceful figures who all seemed to be trained in the latest fashionable steps. I was just on the verge of slipping out and going back to the hotel, when Eunice broke away from her partner and came over to me. 'Old Gentle Heart,' she said. 'You're not having a good time.' 'Not really.'

'I'm sorry. Do you want to go home?' 'I was thinking of it. You don't have to go, you know.' 'Don't be a martyr. Gentle Heart. I hate martyrs. I've had enough dancing anyway.' She took my hand in hers. 'Let's go.' She led me around the edge of the dance floor, avoiding Lily. Upstairs, we got our coats and left without saying goodbye to anyone.

We walked along the snowy path, the night cold and crackling around us, the pine air exhilarating after the warmth and noise of the party. When we had gone about two hundred yards and the chalet was only a small glow of light behind us, we stopped as though a signal had passed between us and faced each other and kissed. Once. Then, walking unhurriedly, we went to the hotel.

We picked up our keys and got into the elevator. Without a word Eunice got off at my floor with me. We made a slow, formal parade of our walk down the carpeted hallway. It was as though she, like myself wanted to savor every moment of the evening.

I opened the door to my room and held it so that Eunice 'could go in before me. She brushed past me, the cold fur of her coat electric against my sleeve. I went in after her and turned on the lamp in the small hallway.

'Oh, my God ! ' Eunice cried.

Lying on the big bed, outlined by the light from the hall, was Didi Wales. Asleep. And naked. Her clothes were neatly draped across a chair, with her snow boots primly together beneath it. Her mother, whatever her other failings, had obviously taught her child to be neat.

'Let me out of here,' Eunice said in a whisper, as though afraid of what would happen if she wakened the sleeping girl. 'This is your baby.'

'Eunice...' I said forlornly.

'Good night,' she said. 'Enjoy yourself.' She pushed past me and was gone.

I stared down at Didi. Her long blonde hair half-covered her face and her even breathing stirred the ends gently. Her skin in the lamplight was childishly rosy except for her throat and face, darkened by the sun. Her breasts were small and plump, her legs sturdy, athletic, schoolgirl's legs. There was red polish on her toenails. She could have posed for an advertisement for baby foods, although somewhat more fully clothed and without the nail polish. Her belly was a little soft mound and the hair beneath it a fuzzy shadow. She slept with her arms rigidly at her sides. It gave her a curious air of lying at attention. If it had been a painting instead of a live, sixteen-year-old girl, it would have been the essence of nude innocence.

But it wasn't a painting. It was a sixteen-year-old girl whose mother and father were, at least technically, friends of mine, and there was no possibility that her intentions in breaking into my room and lying on my bed were in any way innocent. I had the cowardly impulse to steal quietly out of the room and leave her there for the night. Instead, I took off my coat and covered her with it.

The movement awakened her. She opened her eyes slowly and stared up at me, pushing the hair away from her face. Then she smiled. The smile made her look about ten years old.

'God damn it, Didi,' I said, 'what the hell kind of school do you go to here?'

'It's the kind of school where the girls climb out of the window at night,' she said. 'I thought it would be nice to surprise you.' She was much more in control of her voice than I was.

'You surprised me, all right.'

'Aren't you pleased?'

'No,' I said. 'Definitely not.'

'When you get used to the idea,' she said, "maybe you'll change your mind.'

'Please, Didi...'