Aaron West

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE SECOND JOURNEY Chapter XIII Mrs. West was busy. All her efforts were centred around her personal comforts. To her a nice house meant a great deal: a starting-place for her pleasure haunts, a resting-place when her head became weary and sick from their aftermath. She had chosen the serene neighbourhood...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE SECOND JOURNEY Chapter XIII Mrs. West was busy. All her efforts were centred around her personal comforts. To her a nice house meant a great deal: a starting-place for her pleasure haunts, a resting-place when her head became weary and sick from their aftermath. She had chosen the serene neighbourhood of the Albert Hall because of its central position and the vicinity of the Park; advantages which increased the sensation of comfort felt by the visitor upon entering the Wests' flat. The rooms were furnished with pompous bright red morocco sofas and arm-chairs, and suggested a life of leisure and pleasure, an existence of lounging and lolling about lazily with feet up on stools or cushions. Spicey books in coloured bindings were always within reach. There were also hidden comforts, such as cigarettes, whisky, port and liqueurs; but so conspicuously were they hidden that the trained noses of the vegetators who sponged on the Wests were quite able to find them out without the help of either hostess or butler. In these surroundings the Wests had now lived for over a year. Many times the carpets had been swept clean of cigarette ash, many times the glasses had been washed, many people had come in and gone out. But with all these comforts at home Mrs. West was away most of her time, either at a West End card club, theatre-going, or dining with friends somewhere or other. She seemed fully to have re-established herself in society. She was devilishly chic, devilishly attractive. She knew all the knick-knacks, the subtleties, the shops which could make her so. She had changed her powder and the perfume which accompanied her like a wave of attractive odour. Ifshe were not seen, she was sure to be scented. With her well-preserved freshness she stunned even American w...