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learn a foreign language? I don’t want five. But if you could think in terms of ones for a moment, my brother and I would be interested.”
    I muttered something about living in countries and cultivating a “language ear,” and asked them if they had been at the Réserve long.
    “Oh, we’ve been here a week or so now,” he replied. “Our parents are coming over from home next week on the
Conte di Savoia
. We’re meeting them at Marseilles. You got here Tuesday, didn’t you?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, I’m glad we can talk to someone in English. Köche is not bad with his English, but he’s got no staying power. We’ve only had that British major and his wife. He’s high-hat and she doesn’t speak at all.”
    “Which could be lucky, too,” said his sister.
    She was, I was realizing, though far from pretty, extremely attractive. Her mouth was too wide, her nose was not quite symmetrical, and her face was flat, with over-prominent cheekbones. But there was humor and intelligence in the way the lips moved, and the nose and cheekbones were good. The skin of her body was firm and clear and brown, while the thick mass of tawny fair hair crushed forward by the back of the deck-chair gleamed in a most interesting way. She was almost beautiful.
    “The trouble with the French,” her brother was saying, “is that they get mad if you can’t speak their language properly. I don’t get mad if a Frenchman can’t speak English.”
    “No, but that’s because most ordinary Frenchmen like the sound of their language. They don’t like listening to a badFrench accent any more than you like listening to a beginner practicing on a violin.”
    “It’s no use appealing to his musical ear,” commented the girl. “He’s tone deaf.” She got up and smoothed out her bathing suit. “Well,” she said, “I guess we’d better be getting some more clothes on.”
    Herr Vogel heaved himself out of his chair, consulted an enormous watch, and announced in French that it was seven fifteen. Then he hitched up his suspenders another notch and began to collect his and his wife’s belongings. We all went in procession to the steps. I found myself behind the American.
    “By the way, sir,” he said as we started up, “I didn’t catch your name.”
    “Josef Vadassy.”
    “Mine’s Warren Skelton. This is my sister Mary.”
    But I barely heard him. Slung across Herr Vogel’s plump back was a camera, and I was trying to recollect where I had seen another one like it. Then I remembered. It was a box-type Voigtlander.
    On very warm nights, dinner at the Réserve was served on the terrace. A striped awning was put up for the purpose and illumination was provided by candles on the tables. It looked very gay when they were all alight.
    I had made up my mind to be the first on the terrace that evening. For one thing, I was hungry. For another, I wanted to inspect my fellow guests one at a time. Three of them, however, were already in their places when I arrived.
    One of them, a man sitting alone, was placed behind me so that I could not see him except by turning right round inmy chair. I took in as much as possible of his appearance as I walked to my table.
    The candle on his table and the fact that he was bending forward over his plate prevented my seeing much of him except a head of short, graying fair hair brushed sideways without a part. He was wearing a white shirt and a pair of coarse linen trousers of obviously French manufacture.
    I sat down and turned my attention to the other two.
    They sat very stiffly, facing one another across their table, he a narrow-headed man with grizzled brown hair and a clipped mustache, she an impassive middle-aged woman with large bones, a sallow complexion, and a head of neatly dressed white hair. Both had changed for dinner. She wore a white blouse and a black skirt. He had put on gray flannel trousers, a brown striped shirt with a regimental tie, and a broad check riding-coat. As I watched him he