Philip Cliffe-Musgrave sauntered in at one o’clock. Ten years younger than me, he was by far my favourite of all the undergraduates who had passed through our hands, so to speak. Owing to the war, he had come late to Oxford, a man, not a boy. He had, I thought, been slightly in love with me and I might easily have returned this slight love had not the example of my mother, the Bolter, for ever discouraged me from such adventures which begin so cheerfully and finish so shoddily, I had noticed. However, we had trodden the pleasant path of a loving friendship and I had remained extremely fond of him. He was an elegant creature, the best-dressed man I have ever seen, and one of those people who seem to have been born with a knowledge of the world. Alfred thought him very brilliant.
‘Well,’ we said now, looking at each other and laughing.
‘Madame l’Ambassadrice. Too interesting for words. There have been the wildest rumours about Sir Louis’s successor, but truth is certainly stranger than fiction. The dinners I shall be asked to when it gets out that I actually know you!’
‘Philip, I’m terrified!’
‘No wonder. They’ll gobble you up, all those smart women. At first, that is. I think you’ll defend yourself in the long run.’
‘You are horrid – Alfred said you would reassure me.’
‘Yes, yes, I’m only teasing.’
‘Be careful – I’m in a delicate state. Such a lot of things I want to ask; where to begin? Do the Leones know?’
‘That they are leaving? Oh yes.’
‘I mean about us?’
‘When I came away, three days ago, he had been told it was a possibility. They’ll be pleased, I think. That is, it will kill her to leave the Embassy but if she has to hand it over she’d rather it were to someone like you.’
‘Oh. Dreary, d’you mean?’
‘Different. And above all not the wife of a colleague. You don’t know what the jealousy between wives is like, in that service. As for Sir Louis, he is a typical career diplomat. He despises the amateur and is certain that Alfred will make an unholy mess of the job. This, of course, will soften the blow of leaving quite considerably.’
‘Philip, do tell me – why have they chosen Alfred?’
‘Up to their clever tricks, you know.’
‘Now what’s coming?’ I said, uneasily.
‘Don’t be so nervous. I only mean that when the war was comfortably over, the Entente doing all right, the allies in love with each other – not the rulers but the people – everybody busy with their own internal affairs, they sent Sir Louis to captivate the French. And oh, how he succeeded – they eat out of his hand. Now that we are running into choppy seas they send Alfred to puzzle them.’
‘And will he puzzle them?’
‘As he does everybody. His whole career has been one long mystery if you come to consider it. What was he doing with Ernie Bevin during the war? Have you ever understood? Nobody else has. Did you know that he lunches at No. 10, alone with the P.M., at least once a week? Bet you didn’t. Or that the well-informed regard him as one of those people who really govern the country?’
‘Alfred is very secret,’ I said reflectively. ‘I often think that’s why I’m so happy with him. Plate glass is such a bore.’
‘I shall be very much interested to see him at work. No doubt he will keep Bouche-Bontemps and his merry men in a state of chronic perplexity which may be very useful.’
‘Who is Bouche-Bontemps?’
‘My poor Fanny, you’ll have to mug up the political situation a bit. Surely you must have heard of him – he’s the French foreign minister.’
‘They change so often.’
‘Yes, but there are a few old faithfuls who reappear like the soldiers in Faust and he is one.’
‘I know about M. Mendès-France.’
‘Only because he’s called France. Everybody in England has heard of him because the Daily Post goes on about Mr France, which makes it nice and easy.’
‘I know about General de Gaulle.’
‘Yes, well you can forget him, for the moment at any rate.’
‘To go back to the Leones. She minds leaving dreadfully?’
‘All Ambassadresses mind. They are generally carried screaming from the house – “encore un instant, M. le Bourreau” – poor Pauline, yes, she is in despair.’
‘And you’ll hate to lose her?’
‘Yes. I adore her. At the same time, Fanny, as it’s you, I shall be on your side.’
‘Need there be sides? Must we be enemies?’
‘It is never otherwise. You’d better know the form. By the time you arrive she’ll have had an enormous send-off at the Gare du Nord – the whole of Paris – flash-lights, flowers, speeches, tears. All her world will have heard – not directly from her but by a sort of bush telegraph – what brutes you and Alfred are. I suppose I shall swim against the tide, but I shan’t exhaust myself – a few languid strokes – because it will turn so quickly. The point is that, until you arrive, Parisian society will curse upon your name and wish you dead, but from the moment you set foot in the Embassy you will become entirely delightful. Soon we shall hear that the Leones never really quite did, in Paris.’
‘How cynical you are.’
‘That’s life, I guess. Mind you their friends will continue to love them, give dinners for them when they go back and so on. But people are always attracted by power and high office; a house like the Embassy, to which the rulers of the earth gravitate, is worth more to its occupant than the prettiest face, the kindest heart, the oldest friendship. Come now, Fanny, you know enough of the world to know that, I suppose. In this case you are the beneficiary. Soon it will be as though
