Early on Monday morning the Dexters drove away in their huge, sick-coloured motor from which issued puffs of heat and high strains of coloratura. They were to visit some more factories on their way to London.
Hughie said he would motor Grace up in time for dinner. He took her for a long walk and asked her to marry him.
‘But what about Albertine?’ she said, in great surprise. ‘I don’t think I want another husband who goes to tea at the rue de l’Université every day. Charles-Edouard always did, you know; how I hated it.’
‘You needn’t worry about that. I shall never see her again as long as I live.’
‘Why? Has something happened?’
‘Yes. When I went over to Paris in October she played me a thoroughly low and dirty trick which I shall never forgive. But it did have one good result, it showed me quite clearly that you and I ought never to have got mixed up with all these foreigners; we ought to have married in the first place. The sooner we do so now, forget all about these people and settle down to an ordinary English life, the better.’
‘I often think that,’ said Grace. ‘What was it, Hughie?’
‘I haven’t told you before because it involves your husband, Grace, but now I hear you are divorcing anyhow, so I can. Well. I hadn’t seen her since the summer, as you know; she was away for ages, first Venice and then Vienna. I spoke to her on the telephone as soon as I arrived. She was terrifically loving, I was to go round at six, take her to a varnishing, and then dine with her.
‘I was there on the stroke of six, as you can imagine, and Pierre showed me into the little salon there is under her dressing-room, saying she was changing and would be down at once. I could hear her upstairs, getting ready as I supposed, walking to and fro. I imagined her at her dressing-table, going over to the cupboard, trying on one hat, changing it, perhaps changing her dress again. I’d so often seen it – she takes hours to get ready, and then she changes everything again, and so on. I was feeling most awfully romantic, so I got a bit of paper and wrote a little poem about her in her dressing-room and hearing the tap tap of her heels overhead. Fearful rot, of course, but I began longing to show it to her, and finally I thought “why not, I’ll go upstairs and find her.”
‘I went into the dressing-room, but it was Maria, her Italian maid, who was walking up and down. I didn’t think much of this, I thought Albertine must be in her bedroom and I went through, and sure enough there she was – in bed with your husband. Never had such a shock in my life. She must have told Maria to walk to and fro to keep me quiet downstairs. You see? Not very nice, was it? But I think that kills two birds with one stone; it kills Albertine for me and it ought to kill Valhubert for you.’
Grace tried not to laugh. The story did not upset her at all. Could she possibly, she thought, be coming round to the point of view of her father and Charles-Edouard on these matters?
‘Very French,’ she said.
‘Yes, and I wish you could have heard her trying to explain it away on the telephone afterwards – very French too. “Come now, Hughie, Charles-Edouard is my foster-brother, we had the same nurse and drank the same milk, how could there be anything between him and me? We were having a little rest after luncheon.” ’Course I just rang off.’
‘Poor Hughie!’
‘Funny thing is I honestly didn’t mind, in fact it was really, after the first shock, a great relief. You see, I’m too English, just as you are, Grace, to cope with people like that. It’s unsuitable, we shouldn’t attempt it. And it showed me something else too, that it’s you I love, Grace. What I felt for Albertine was simply infatuation.’
‘I always wish I knew the difference between infatuation and love,’ said Grace.
‘You are infatuated with your husband, but it can’t last, it’s not built on anything solid and very soon you’ll begin to love me again. You like this place, don’t you, and our life here, it suits you, and you like being with me. Then if I take up politics you’ll like that; you’re used to it, with your father, and you’ll be a great help to me. You loved me all right before you met Valhubert, and I’m sure you will again, and you’ll like having some real English children with blue eyes and things, more natural for you. Besides, we’ve both had the same experience now, it makes us understand each other as an outside person never would. So, when the divorce is over, Grace –?’
‘Let’s wait a bit,’ said Grace. ‘No hurry, is there? I’m pleased and touched to have been asked, but I can’t say, yet. It all depends, very much, on Sigismond.’
‘He’ll be all for it, you’ll see,’ said Hughie with confidence. ‘I’ll think of every sort of amusing thing for him to do when he gets back.’
5
It did not take Sigi very long to notice that life in Paris alone with Charles-Edouard was a very different matter from family life there with a mummy you only saw at tea-time and a daddy you hardly ever saw at all. It was much more fun. He was with his father morning, noon, and night, and all the things they did together were delightful. They went to the antique shops and museums; Sigi learnt about marquetry and china and pictures and bronzes and was given a small cabinet to house an ivory collection of his own. They went to the Jockey Club, and though Sigi was left sitting, like a dog, in the hall, he
