3. Anne-Marie and the rings O. thought — or she wanted to think so — that Jacqueline would pretend to be impregnable virtue. But as soon as she tried to check it out, she immediately made sure that everything was completely wrong. She realized that the excessive bashfulness with which Jacqueline closed the dressing room door behind her when she went to change clothes, in fact, was intended for her, O., to lure her in order to make her want to open the door and enter this room. In the end, all this happened, but Jacqueline never knew that O.'s long-awaited determination was caused not by her naive tricks, but by a completely different reason. For a while, O. It was pleasantly amusing.

Sir Stephen obliged O. to tell him about everything related to her relationship with Jacqueline. And sometimes, helping Jacqueline to tidy up her hair, for example, after she took off her dress, in which she posed, and put on her light sweater with a long narrow collar, O. thought about what great pleasure and desire she would have told sir Stephen about Jacqueline, let her at least through her sweater to caress her small, looking to the sides of the chest, or to get a hand to her skirt, or just undress her. When O. kissed her, Jacqueline froze, as if listening to something. Kissing Jacqueline, O. threw back her head and opened her lips with her tongue. At the same time, it always seemed to her that if she did not support Jacqueline, then the girl would definitely fall - silently, with her eyes closed. But as soon as O. let her go, Jacqueline again became a sort of virtuous social woman, sharp and ironic. Then she said: "You smeared me with lipstick." And, smiling, wiping her lips. At such moments, O. tried to memorize all the details — a light blush that appeared after her kisses on Jacqueline’s cheeks, a faint smell of sage, a smell of sweat — to tell Sir Stephen about all this later. Until now, Jacqueline allowed O. only to kiss her, while she herself remained completely indifferent.

Yielding O. she became completely different, not like the usual, Jacqueline. The rest of the time she behaved very independently and detached, trying in no way to give any reason for suspicion and gossip. Perhaps the mysterious smile that appears more and more often on Jacqueline’s lips, or rather even the shadow, the trace of this smile, similar to the smile of Mona Lisa, is just as vague, elusive, and strangely disturbing, indicating that under the cold gaze of those green bottomless eyes may be hiding something like confusion.

O. pretty soon noticed that Jacqueline really enjoyed only two things: the first is all simple - these are gifts that she always and everywhere gave, the second is somewhat more difficult - she liked to see signs of that desire in people in them, with the only proviso that these people must either be useful to her or their attention should flatter her vanity. So O. did not understand how she could be useful to Jacqueline? Although it is possible that a friend made an exception for her and she just liked to cause in O. desire and admiration, which she tried not to hide. Yes, and courtship women are safe and have no consequences. However, O. suspected that she had presented Jacqueline, who, it seemed, constantly lacked money, a check for ten or twenty thousand francs instead of mother-of-pearl clips or a new scarf on which “I love you” was written in all languages ​​of the world would be more compliant and would stop avoiding her caresses. But O. was not at all sure of this.

Time passed, and Sir Stephen began to show a certain dissatisfaction with O.'s slowness. She found herself in some confusion, and here, as it was impossible by the way, Renee intervened. He often went to her agency and once or five times six found Jacqueline there; then the three of them went either to Weber, or to one of the nearby English bars. ABOUT.she noticed then in Rene’s view, when he looked at Jacqueline, a mixture of interest, self-confidence and lust — something like the way he looked at the girls who were at his disposal at Roisy Castle. But Jacqueline was under the protection of a strong sparkling shell of its irresistible, and the views of Rene did not embarrass her. On the other hand, they hurt O. — what she considered natural and normal in relation to herself, in relation to Jacqueline seemed to her completely unacceptable and offensive. Did she want to protect Jacqueline? Or was it caused by a simple reluctance to share it with anyone? However, there was still nothing to share — Jacqueline did not yet belong to her. And if, in the end, it happened, it was only thanks to Rene. Three times, when Jacqueline drank more than he should — her eyes would become prickly and her protruding cheekbones noticeably turned pink — he had to take her home.

She lived in Passy, ​​in one of those squalid family pensions, where, after the Bolshevik revolution, many refugees from Russia found refuge. The lobby, made in the color of bog oak, is wiped by green carpet in some places up to the holes, covering the floor, and a thick layer of dust lying wherever you look. It was about this that Rene saw from the threshold of the front door when Jacqueline accompanied him home for the first time. But neither then, nor later did he manage to cross this threshold - as soon as he only expressed a desire to enter, as Jacqueline every time screamed: “No, thank you very much!”, And jumping out of the car, she ran into the house and with a sharp movement slammed the door itself, as if someone was chasing her.

But O. still managed to visit Jacqueline once. As she didn’t remember, it happened that Jacqueline let her enter the house and even took her to her room. And O. then immediately understood why the girl so categorically refuses to let Rene come here. What would have happened to her image, with her charm, with the fairy tale she created in the pages of fashionable illustrated magazines, find out how she lives. An unfinished bed, only slightly covered by a veil, from which a gray sheet sticks out, in yellow spots, a sheet (O. later found out that Jacqueline always puts a mask on her face in the evening, but then falls asleep so quickly that she doesn’t have time to take off the cream ); metal cornice, with two dangling useless rings, on which pieces of some wire were hung. It seems that a tiny bathroom was once separated from the rest of the world by a curtain. Carpet and dirty, with large gray and pink colors infinitely intertwining with each other, wallpaper faded and faded. Apparently, the wallpaper would have long been worthwhile to strip, just as, incidentally, throw the carpet and clean the floor, but first it would be necessary to wipe the rust stains from the enamel of the washbasin, disassemble all the cosmetics scattered on the dresser, wipe the powder, collect dirty cottonballs, open windows and ventilate the room. But Jacqueline, always crystal clear and fresh, smelling of mint and wildflowers, flawless Jacqueline refused to even think about it and laughed when she was offered help.

Jacqueline did not like talking about her relatives. And most likely it was because of them that Jacqueline finally agreed to O.’s proposal to move in with her. This idea belonged to Rene - O. in a conversation with him let slip about the abomination in which Jacqueline has to live, and he immediately suggested that Jacqueline live with O.

Together with the girl lived a mother, grandmother, aunt and maid - four women aged fifty to seventy years, made up, fussy and choking under their black silk clothes, sobbing loudly at four in the morning before the icons in the heat of cigarette smoke. Jacqueline was irritated by the endless tea drinking with the tinkling of teaspoons and the crunch of cracking sugar, and the eternal whispering and dumb reproach in his eyes. Jacqueline went mad with the inevitability of obeying them, listening to their conversations and constantly seeing them. And often during meals in the mother's room, she could not withstand this tension and, throwing everything, ran out from the table, leaving in confusion ...