I must admit that I went early, so as to miss nothing. Juan gave Lord Buzzy and me a drink in the bar and excused himself to supervise the fish turbans. I began to feel a little guilty because Buzzy was charm itself and very worried over Lady Cynthia. I was in the midst of reassuring him when Lady Cynthia herself walked in. I had thought she was beautiful before, but now she was utterly breathtaking. Again she was all in white, with pearls, but her creamy skin had turned a deep golden shade that made her pansy purple-blue eyes more startling than ever.
It was plain that Lord Buzzy was overcome, but with beautiful English reserve he just got up and said “Hello” and brushed his lips lightly over her tanned cheek.
Lady Cynthia said, “I am glad to see you, Buzzy. It's been rather a time.”
“Gin and tonic?” he asked and mixed it for her. He raised his glass and their eyes met, and I think they forgot that I was there. I picked up a magazine and pretended I wasn't.
“I've been in the jungles,” she told him, “far over the mountain passes and nearly to the Amazon … on mules and all that sort of thing. There were snakes and parrots and panthers … and Indians.”
“Indians,” he repeated.
“Yes,” she said, “Indians,” and shook her head in a strange negative little gesture.
“I might as well tell you now,” she said. “Sandoval isn't a very tall man, but he's very handsome. Very beautiful and courtly manners … rather like an ambassador, you know. Well, he's an entomologist and I went on collecting trips with him. We caught lots of butterflies and I helped him fix them in his sister- in-law's inn in the evening. She didn't like me and made remarks about me to the other boarders.”
The slightest flicker of annoyance shadowed Lord Buzzy's impassive English face.
“Then one day Sandoval asked me if I wanted to go on a long trip two days away to a savage Indian encampment by mule. They collected rare things for him and I said yes. Buzzy, you can't imagine what real jungle is like … just a few hundred yards away from Pangoa and you could lose yourself forever.
“You see, Sandoval hadn't been to this camp for a long time and we lost our way because the Indians had made a new trail and the old one was horribly overgrown. My mule was a stubborn beast and he kept on plowing through undergrowth and I got all scratched and torn. Then he jumped over a log and I fell headfirst into a thicket. I lost my turban and my hair got absolutely matted with burs.”
Lord Buzzy's eyes strayed momentarily from hers and rested affectionately on the satin-smooth ash blonde hair that was so naively innocent of permanents.
“Sandoval was worried because it had begun to rain and we were lost. We pushed on as fast as we could but the wind rose and it was terrifying, Buzzy … absolutely terrifying. Dangerous, too, because in the high wind lots of trees crashed and they sounded like great wounded beasts screaming before they died. We finally came to an old Indian clearing where there was a tiny abandoned hut, so we at least got out of the rain.”
Lady Cynthia ran one slender pearl-ringed hand over her hair and went on, “It was too late to go farther that day so we had to camp there for the night.” Lady Cynthia was silent for a time. “We cooked our supper and Sandoval set up my camp cot … he never used one … and we talked for a while by the fire. I got out my hair brush and tried to get the burs out of my hair, but it was so full of them I couldn't do a thing with it. Then Sandoval said, “Why don't you let me do that?”
A strange expression crept over Buzzy's face and he said, “Would you like another gin and tonic?” Lady Cynthia nodded.
“Then you know, Buzzy, he was so gentle brushing my hair and I was so miserable and wet—I kept thinking of you and that gypsy and I decided I'd be unfaithful to you.” She looked up at Lord Buzzy with utter candor in her fabulous blue eyes. The expression in his gray ones was pretty unfathomable, but I thought I detected besides affection and pride, a little amusement.
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