‘Oh you shouldn’t! How good of you.’
Charles-Edouard took it from Sigi. ‘You shut one eye, like Nelson, and see the stars. So.’
‘Is it a telescope?’
‘Better, you make your own stars as you go along. Venus – can you see? Shake it. Mars. Shake it. Jupiter as himself. Shake it. Jupiter as a swan.’
‘Charles-Edouard, you’ll muddle him.’
‘Now here’s another star you can see with the naked eye,’ he said, pointing to Juliette. ‘Doesn’t she twinkle? She’ll tell us all the gossip of the heavens. So, Juliette, tell.’
‘Nothing to tell. I lead the life of a good little girl who does her lessons.’
‘Ah yes? What lessons?’
‘In the morning I sing, coloratura, “Hark, hark the lark”; in the afternoon I paint a snowy landscape; and when it is night I go to the Louvre and see the statues lit up.’ She looked at Charles-Edouard with huge, innocent, blue eyes.
‘Hm, hm,’ he said, clearly rather annoyed. Grace felt again that horrid pang or twinge of jealous uneasiness that she had had on seeing Charles-Edouard outside Albertine’s house in the rue de l’Université. Only that morning he had promised to take her, when she was well again, to see the statues lit up, saying how beautiful was the Winged Victory, white in the black shadows and then black against a white wall. She could not help noticing his present embarrassment, and was quite sure that he must have been to see the statues with Juliette. Her feeling of not being able to blame him for liking to be with this pretty wriggler, this flapper of eyelids and purser of lips, suddenly gave way to a feeling that she blamed him very much, and indeed could hardly bear it.
Meanwhile Sigi was entranced with the kaleidoscope.
‘Please,’ he said, ‘can I take it to bed when I go?’
‘But this child is his father over again,’ cried Albertine. ‘The moment he sees something pretty he wants to take it to bed with him.’
Two large tears rolled down Grace’s cheeks. She felt, all of a sudden, most exceedingly tired.
Sir Conrad now came over to visit Grace, though he refused to stay with her, preferring the freedom of an hotel. When in Paris he liked to submit himself to the rather strenuous attentions of a certain Hungarian countess, an old friend of before the war; after visiting her establishment he needed a restful morning, and did not feel up to much family life before luncheon-time.
Charles-Edouard introduced him to Madame Rocher, and this was a stroke of genius, they could have been made for each other. She came out of mourning and gave a large dinner party for him, at which he charmed everybody. The rumours about the Allinghams not being people to know were now for ever scotched. He and Madame Rocher embarked upon a shameless flirtation, and were soon on such intimate terms that she even taxed him with being a Freemason. Sir Conrad, who was of course perfectly aware of the implications of this in France, roared with laughter, did not make any definite statement but let it be understood that his daughter had, of course, been joking, and a very good joke too. Madame Rocher, who was no fool, began to see that Charles-Edouard must have been quite right in what he had said about English Freemasons. Henceforward she addressed Sir Conrad as Vénérable, referred to him as le Grand Maître, and all was merry as a marriage bell.
He liked Charles-Edouard more than ever. It would have surprised and gratified Grace to know that they had long, interesting discussions on political subjects when they were alone together, during which Charles-Edouard showed himself quite as serious, if not quite as long-winded, as Hector Dexter. One evening Charles-Edouard, though protesting that he himself only cared for society women, took his father-in-law round the brothels. These, having lately been driven underground by the ill-considered action of a woman Deputy, had become rather difficult for a foreigner to find.
Sir Conrad, who had never had many topics on which he could converse with his daughter, now found fewer even than when she was living with him.
‘Are you happy?’ he asked her, before leaving.
‘Very happy.’
‘Take care of yourself, darling. You don’t look well.’
‘I was quite ill. I shall be all right in a week or two.’
‘Nanny hasn’t changed much.’
‘Oh dear, no.’
‘Well, sooner Charles-Edouard than me is all I can say. Must you keep her? Couldn’t you get a governess soon, or a tutor or something?’
‘Papa! Nanny! – I couldn’t possibly do without her.’
‘No, no, I suppose not. And as she seems to have the secret of eternal youth (sold her soul to the devil, no doubt) I suppose Sigi’s children won’t be able to do without her either. If we were savages she would undoubtedly be the chieftainess of the tribe.’
Back in London, Sir Conrad went straight off to see Mrs O’Donovan and recount his visit.
‘It’s such a pity you didn’t come,’ he said, ‘next time you really must. Grace would love to put you up, she asked me to tell you.’
‘I don’t believe I shall ever go back to Paris,’ she said. ‘I’ve known it too well and loved it too much. I couldn’t bear to find all my friends old and poor and down at heels.’
‘If it’s only that,’ he said with a short laugh, ‘I’ve never seen them so prosperous, all living in their own huge houses, thousands of servants, guzzle, guzzle, guzzle, swig, swig, swig, just like old days.’
‘Are they really so rich? But why?’ she said querulously, as if they ought not to be.
‘I suppose I don’t have to enter into the economic reasons with you. You know as well as I do why it is.’
‘In any case you can’t deny they are all ten years older.’
‘But the point is you’d think they were twenty years younger. They’ve all had Bogomoletz. That is something we must look into, you know. You get the liver of a newly killed young man (killed on the roads, of course,
