"Hello, you chaps."
"Hello, Brett," I said. "Why aren't you tight?"
"Never going to get tight any more. I say, give a chap a brandy and soda."
She stood holding the glass and I saw Robert Cohn looking at her. He looked a great deal as his compatriot must have looked when he saw the promised land. Cohn, of course, was much younger. But he had that look of eager, deserving expectation.
Brett was damned good-looking. She wore a slipover jersey sweater and a tweed skirt, and her hair was brushed back like a boy's. She started all that. She was built with curves like the hull of a racing yacht, and you missed none of it with that wool jersey.
"It's a fine crowd you're with, Brett," I said.
"Aren't they lovely? And you, my dear. Where did you get it?"
"At the Napolitain."
"And have you had a lovely evening?"
"Oh, priceless," I said.
Brett laughed. "It's wrong of you, Jake. It's an insult to all of us. Look at Frances there, and Jo."
This for Cohn's benefit.
"It's in restraint of trade," Brett said. She laughed again.
"You're wonderfully sober," I said.
"Yes. Aren't I? And when one's with the crowd I'm with, one can drink in such safety, too."
The music started and Robert Cohn said: "Will you dance this with me, Lady Brett?"
Brett smiled at him. "I've promised to dance this with Jacob," she laughed. "You've a hell of a biblical name, Jake."
"How about the next?" asked Cohn.
"We're going," Brett said. "We've a date up at Montmartre."
Dancing, I looked over Brett's shoulder and saw Cohn, standing at the bar, still watching her.
"You've made a new one there," I said to her.
