Read Online Christmas Holiday by W. Somerset Maugham - Free Book Online

talked in a desultory way to one another and threw inquisitive glances at the men who were sitting at the various tables. It wasapparent that the party of sight-seers, with the smart women from a different world, excited their curiosity. On the face of it, except that the girls were half naked, there was nothing to distinguish the place from any night club but the fact that there was room to dance in comfort. Charley noticed that at a table near theirs two men with dispatch-cases, from which in the course of conversation they extracted papers, were talking business as unconcernedly as if they were in a café. Presently one of the men from the group of sight-seers went and spoke to two girls who were dancing together, whereupon they stopped and went up to the table from which he had come; one of the women, beautifully dressed in black, with a string of emeralds round her neck, got up and began dancing with one of the two girls. The other went back to the bench and sat down. The sous-maîtresse, the woman in the coat and skirt, came up to Simon and Charley.
    “Well, does your friend see any of these ladies who takes his fancy?”
    “Sit down with us a minute and have a drink. He’s having a look round. The night’s young yet.”
    She sat down and when Simon called the waiter ordered an orangeade.
    “I’m sorry he’s come here for the first time on such a quiet night. You see, on Christmas Eve a lot of people have to stay at home. But it’ll get more lively presently. A crowd of English have come over to Paris for the holidays. I saw in the paper that they’re running the Golden Arrow in three sections. They’re a great nation, the English; they have money.”
    Charley, feeling rather shy, was silent, and she asked Simon if he understood French.
    “Of course he does. He spent six months in Touraine to learn it.”
    “What a beautiful district! Last summer when I took my holiday I motored all through the Châteaux country. Angèle comes from Tours. Perhaps your friend would like to dance with her.” She turned to Charley. “You do dance, don’t you?”
    “Yes, I like it.”
    “She’s very well educated and she comes from an excellent family. I went to see them when I was in Tours and they thanked me for all that I had done for their daughter. They were persons of the greatest respectability. You mustn’t think that we take anyone here. Madame is very particular. We have our name and we value it. All these ladies here come from families who are highly esteemed in their own town. That is why they like to work in Paris. Naturally they don’t want to cause embarrassment to their relations. Life is hard and one has to earn one’s living as best one can. Of course I don’t pretend that they belong to the aristocracy, but the aristocracy in France is thoroughly corrupt, and for my part I set much greater value on the good French bourgeois stock. That is the backbone of the country.”
    Mademoiselle Ernestine gave you the impression of a sensible woman of sound principle. You could not but feel that her views on the social questions of the day would be well worth listening to. She patted Simon’s hand and again speaking to Charley said:
    “It always gives me pleasure to see Monsieur Simon. He’s a good friend of the house. He doesn’t come very often, but when he does he behaves like a gentleman. He is never drunk like some of your compatriots and one can talk to him of interesting subjects. We are always glad to see journalists here. Sometimes I think the life we lead is a little narrow and it does one good to talk to someone who is in the centre of things. It takes one out of one’s rut. He’s sympathetic.”
    In those surroundings, as though he felt himself strangely at home, Simon was easy and genial. If he was acting it was a very good performance that he was giving. You would have thought that he felt some queer affinity between himself and the sous-maîtresse of the brothel.
    “Once he took me to a