“Good morning, Marie,” he said. “Were you looking for me?”

Her eyes narrowed and her hands clenched. For a moment Alleyn thought she was going to have at Louis but she turned instead to him. “Pardon, Monsieur Alleyn,” she said. “A stupid mistake. My son occasionally has the bad manners to throw stones.” And with a certain magnificence she returned indoors.

“Let’s face it,” said Louis, “I am not, in that department, a popular boy.” He looked up at Julia in the window. “We’ll be late for luncheon,” he called. “Coming?”

“Go and find Bruno, then,” she said. “I’ll be down in a moment.”

Alleyn looked at his watch. “I’m running shamefully late,” he said. “Will you forgive me?”

“For almost anything,” Julia called, “except not coming to see us. Au revoir.”

iv

Ricky would not have chosen for Julia to see him with his black eye, which was half-closed and made him look as if he lewdly winked at people. He had felt sheepish and uncomfortable when she walked into his room but, although she did laugh, it was sympathetically, and at first she didn’t ask him to elaborate on his accident. This surprised him, because after all it would have been a natural thing to do. Perversely, although relieved, he felt slightly hurt at the avoidance.

Nor did she tease him with questions about his father’s activities, but related the Pharamonds’ London adventures, asked him about his writing, and repeated her nonsense offer to help him with it. She dodged about from one topic to another. The children, she said, had become too awful. “They writhe and ogle and have suddenly turned just so common that I begin to think they must be changelings and not Jasper’s and mine at all.”

“Oh, come,” said Ricky.

“I promise! Of course, I love them to distraction and put it all down to everybody but me spoiling them. We’ve decided that they shall have a tutor.”

“Aren’t they rather small for that?” Ricky ventured.

“Not at all. He needn’t teach them anything, just rule them with a rod of iron and think of strenuous and exhausting games. I had rather wondered if Mr. Jones might do.”

“You can’t by any chance mean that?”

“Not really. It did just cross my mind that perhaps he could teach them painting. Selina’s style is rather like his own. With guidance she might develop into a sort of Granddaughter Moses. Still, as you tell me he’s junketing in Saint Pierre-des-Roches these ideas are only wishful thinking on my part. I merely throw them out.”

“I don’t know where he is.”

“Didn’t you go jaunting together to Saint Pierre?”

“No, no,” he said in a hurry. “Not together. Only, as it happened, at the same time. I was just a day-tripper.”

“Well,” said Julia gazing at his face, “you certainly do seem to have tripped in a big way.”

Ricky joined painfully in her amusement. It was at this point that Julia had walked over to the window and waved to Alleyn and Louis.

“They look portentous,” she said and then, with an air of understatement that was not quite successful, she said: “It’s not fair.”

“I don’t understand? What isn’t?”

“The two of them, down there. The ‘confrontation.’ Isn’t that one of the in words? Oh, come off it, Ricky. You know what I mean. Diamond cut paste. One guess which is which.”

This was so utterly unlike anything Julia had ever said to him in their brief acquaintance and, in its content, so acutely embarrassing, that he could find no reply. She had come close to him and looked into his face searchingly as if hesitating on the edge of some further extravagance or indiscretion.

Ricky’s hands began to tingle and his heart to thump.

“Poorest Ricky,” she said and gently laid her palm against his unbruised cheek, “I’ve muddled you. Never mind.”

Ricky’s thoughts were six-deep and simultaneous. He thought: “That’s torn it,” and at the same time, “this is it: this is Julia in my arms and these are her ribs,” and “if I kiss her I’ll probably hurt my face,” and even, bouleversé though he was, “what does she mean about Louis?” And then he was kissing her.

“No, no,” Julia was saying. “My dear boy, no. What are you up to! Ricky, please.”

Now they stood apart. She said: “Bless my soul, you did take me by surprise,” and made a shocked face at him. “ ‘Out upon you, fie upon you Bold Faced Jig,’ ” she quoted.

“She’s not even disconcerted,” he thought. “I might be Selina for all she feels about it.”

He said: “I’m sorry, but you do sort of trigger one off, you know.”

“Do I? How lovely! It’s very gratifying to know one hasn’t lost the knack. I must tell Jasper, it’ll be good for him.”

“How can you?” Ricky said quietly.

“My dear, I’m sorry. That was beastly of me. I won’t tell Jasper. I wouldn’t dream of it.”

She waited for a moment and then began to make conversation as if he were an awkward visitor who had, somehow or another, to be put at his ease. He did his best to respond and in some degree succeeded, but he was humiliated and confusedly resentful.

“Have you,” she said at last, “had your invitation to Cuth’s party?”

“His party? No.”

“Not exactly a party perhaps although it’s ‘ladies a basket,’ we must remember. You must remember. It’s one of his services. In the barn at Leathers on Sunday. You’re sure to be asked. Do come and bring your papa. Actually it seems anyone is welcome. Gents fifty pence. We’ve all been invited and I think we’re all going although Louis may be away. It has ‘The Truth!’ written by hand all over it with rows of exciting marks and ‘Revelation!’ in enormous capitals on the last page. You must come back to L’Espérance afterwards for supper in case the baskets are not very filling.”

It had been at this point that Louis threw gravel at the window. When Ricky looked down and saw him there with Alleyn standing behind him it was if they were suddenly exhibited as an illustration to Julia’s extraordinary observations. He was given, as he afterwards thought, a new look at his father — at his quietude and his air of authority. And there was handsome Louis in the foreground, all eyes and teeth, acting his boots off. Ricky understood what Julia had meant when she said it wasn’t fair.

In response to Louis’s gesture he opened the window and was witness to the idiotic quotation from Romeo, Julia’s quelling of Louis, and Mrs. Ferrant’s eruption into the scene and departure from it.

When Julia had dealt crisply with the remaining situation she shut the window and returned to Ricky.

“High time the Pharamonds removed themselves,” she said. She looked directly into his eyes, broke into her laugh, kissed him rapidly on his unbruised side, and was gone.

She gave a cheerful greeting to Mrs. Ferrant as she saw herself off.

Ricky stood stock-still in his room. He heard the car start up and climb the hill to the main road. When he looked out his father had gone and the little street was deserted.

“And after all that,” he thought, “I suppose I’m meant to get on with my book.”

v

Around the corner in Sergeant Plank’s office, Alleyn talked to his contact in Marseilles, M. l’Inspecteur Dupont. They spoke in French and were listened to with painful concentration by Mr. Fox. Dupont had one of those Provençal voices that can be raised to a sort of metallic clatter guaranteed to extinguish any opposition. It penetrated every corner of the little room and caused Mr. Fox extreme consternation.

At last, when Alleyn, after an exchange of compliments, hung up the receiver, Fox leaned back in his chair, unknitted his brow, and sighed deeply.

“It’s the pace,” he said heavily. “That’s what gets you — that and the noise. I suppose,” he added wistfully, turning to Sergeant Plank, “you had no difficulty?”