The famous parents and their famous children were now lined up for the entrée. Each group, heralded by a roll of drums, entered the ballroom by a small stage. Here they posed a few moments for the photographers, after which they joined the crowd on the ballroom floor. Very soon the famous parents dumped their famous offspring at the buffet and left them there while they went off to dance, flirt, gamble, or gossip with other famous parents. The children happily stuffed away with cream and cake and champagne, all of which very soon combined with the lateness of the hour to produce a drowsy numbness. Every available sofa, chair, and settee now bore its load of sleeping babies; they lay on the floor round the edges of the rooms, under the buffet, and behind the window curtains. The grown-ups, all set for a jolly evening, waltzed carelessly among their bodies.
Presently two incongruous, iron-clad figures appeared, clicking their tongues, the Dexter and Valhubert nannies in search of their charges. They peered about, turning over an occasional body, and looking like nothing so much as two tragic mothers after some massacre of innocents. Sigi was found in the arms of the Reine Margot; Foss had crept into a corner and been terribly sick. Of course Carolyn knew that she ought never to have allowed him to come, she felt most extremely guilty about it; but the fact was that this ball had had the effect, in Paris, of a bull-fight in some small Spanish town – that is to say, disapprove of it as you might, the atmosphere it produced was such that it was really impossible to resist going to it. Bearing away the little bodies, their faces glowing with a just indignation, the two English nannies vanished into the night.
Charles-Edouard spent most of his evening with Madame de Tournon, whom he had always rather fancied but whom he had never so far courted because she was Juliette’s greatest friend. He detested scenes and drama in his private life, and would go to almost any lengths, within reason, to avoid them.
Madame Rocher set her cap at Hector Dexter. She was organizing a gala at the Opéra in June, to provide the Hospice des Innouïs with some new bath-chairs and other little comforts for the aged.
The Dexters were just the people to rope in for this gala, a big box, she thought, and possibly a row of stalls as well. Having been told that one certain way to the heart of every American was through his mother, she said,
‘Your mother was a Whale, I believe, Mr Dexter?’
‘Why yes, indeed, Madame des Innouïs, that is so.’
‘My late husband, who knew America, was entertained there by the Whales; he has often and often told me that their house was an exact copy, but ten times the size, of – let me see – was it Courances or Château d’O? – one of those houses entirely surrounded by water anyhow.’
‘This is another branch of the Whale family, Madame Innouïs. There are hundreds of Whales in the States since this family is a very very large and extensive one and I have a perfect multiplicity of aunts and uncles and cousins and other more distant relatives, spread over the whole extent of the U.S.A. and all originating as Whales.’
‘How delightful.’ Madame Rocher’s attention was wandering. She longed to join the group round Janvier, Cocquelin and Daudet, the musicians, who were doing their imitation of Juliette’s gate-crashing, Janvier leading in Daudet, Cocquelin as the outraged Albertine – not the polished affair it afterwards became but none the less funny for that – to the accompaniment of happy shrieks from their audience. First things first, however. She turned again to Mr Dexter, saying, ‘And have you any children yourself?’
‘I am glad to be able to tell you yes, Mrs Innouïs. I have a son and a daughter by my first wife, the first Mrs Dexter, and a son by my second wife, and a son, who is here this evening costumed as George Washington, by my third wife, who is also here, costumed as George Washington’s mother, I myself being costumed as you can see, as George Washington’s father. My eldest son, Heck junior, is not perhaps quite brilliant, but he is a very very well-integrated, human person. My daughter, Aylmer, is married, and happily married I am glad to say, to a young technician in a very prominent and important electrical concern. My son by my second wife is now at Yale, having a good time. In the States, Madame Innouïs, we believe in all young folk being happy, and we do all we humanly can to further their happiness.
‘Now here in Europe a very different point of view
