IT WAS twelve o’clock when Bond left the Splendide and the clock on the ‘mairie’ was stumbling through its midday carillon.
Bond found this irksome. He disliked being cosseted. It gave him claustrophobia.
For the first time since his capture, fear came to Bond and crawled up his spine.
The man who was only a silhouette. She.
She looked at him and saw that his nostrils were slightly flared. In other respects he seemed completely at ease, acknowledging cheerfully the greetings of the Casino functionaries.
Suspiciously Bond walked over and examined the screws which secured the panel to.
They paddled easily, in unison, the paddles turning in their hands so that they did not leave the water on the forward stroke. The small waves slapped softly against the bows. Otherwise they made no noise. It was dark. Nobody saw them go. They just left the land and went off across the sea.
Miss Moneypenny would have been desirable but for eyes which were cool and direct and quizzical.
Bond awoke in his own room at dawn and for a time he lay and stroked his memories.
Mania, my dear Mister Bond, is as priceless as genius. Dissipation.
AS, TWO weeks later, James Bond awoke in his room at the Hotel Splendide, some of this history passed through his mind.
Where am I?’ he asked and was surprised that his voice sounded firm and clear.
All concierges are venal. It is not their fault. They are trained to regard all hotel guests except maharajahs as potential cheats and thieves. They have as much concern for your comfort or well-being as crocodiles.
Bond saw luck as a woman, to be softly wooed or brutally ravaged, never pandered to or pursued. But he was honest enough to admit that he had never yet been made to suffer by cards or by women. One day, and he accepted the fact, he would be brought to his knees by love or by luck. When that happened he knew that he too would be branded with the deadly question-mark he recognized so often in others, the promise to pay before you have lost: the acceptance of fallibility.
What an extraordinary difference there was between a body full of a person and a body that was empty! Now there is someone, now there is no one.
Bond grinned with pleasure. What most warmed him was that M. himself should have rung up Mathis. This was quite unheard of. The very existence of M., let alone his identity, was never admitted. He could imagine the flutter this must have caused in the ultra-security-minded organization in London.
Head of S., thought Bond. They’re certainly giving me the red carpet treatment.
He went off down the corridor, feeling, for the first time in his life, totally inadequate.
I like doing everything fully, getting the most out of everything one does. I think that’s the way to live.
By the end of the week, Bond was sunburned and hard. He had cut his cigarettes down to ten a day and had not had a single drink. He could swim two miles without tiring, his hand was completely healed and all the scales of big city life had fallen from him.
Somebody said that to become very rich you have to be helped by a combination of remarkable circumstances and an unbroken run of luck.