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nice shelves for our toys. No mantelpieces, either, for my photographs and the ornaments. Funny sort of rooms, aren’t they? Not very homy. I’d like to show you the bathroom and lavatory, dear – nothing but a cupboard – no window at all, really most insanitary – it would never be allowed at home.’
    ‘How fascinating,’ said Grace, ‘look, it’s built in the thickness of the wall, this big bathroom.’
    ‘Perhaps it may be. Then what is that guitar-shaped vase for, I wonder? Oh, well, it’ll do to put the things to soak. Not very nice, is it? Leading out of our bedroom like that?’
    ‘Never mind, in this lovely weather you can leave everything wide open – it’s quite different from England.’
    ‘Different!’ a deep sniff, ‘I should say it is.’
    ‘Look at the swing! How amusing! That will quite make up to Sigi for leaving his rocking-horse behind.’
    ‘Yes, well it’s a funny place for a swing, in our bedroom.’
    ‘It’s all so huge, isn’t it? And like being out of doors, with these great windows everywhere. Heavenly, really. Look, here’s a cupboard, darling – the size of a room, too. Hadn’t you noticed it? You can put everything here – and see, there’s a light for it. That is nice.’
    ‘Just smell inside, dear – horribly musty, I’m afraid. Then I was wanting to speak to you about these roofs – the little monkey will be up on them in no time. My goodness! I knew it! Come down this instant, Sigi, what did I tell you? You are not to climb on those roofs – what d’you think you’re doing? It’s most dangerous.’
    ‘I’m Garth on the mountains of the moon.’
    Charles-Edouard reappeared, saying, ‘Oh, do be Napoleon crossing the Alps. This Garth is really too dull. The roofs are quite safe, Nanny, I lived on them when I was his age, mountaineering and exploring. I must get out my old Journal des Voyages for him, since I suppose he is rather young for Jules Verne?’
    Nanny having retreated into the nursery, ‘don’t know how you can stand the glare,’ Charles-Edouard pulled at the neck of Grace’s cotton dress and implanted a kiss on her shoulder.
    ‘Ugh! You soppy things,’ said Sigismond, ‘I don’t like all this daft kissing stuff.’
    ‘You’ll like it all right one day,’ said Charles-Edouard. ‘That big bell means luncheon time. Good appetite, Sigi.’
    As they went back through the nursery a man-servant was laying the table on a thick, white linen tablecloth. ‘Good appetite, Nanny,’ said Charles-Edouard. Nanny did not reply. She was looking with stupefied disapproval at a bottle of wine which had just been put down in front of her.

5
    Very hungry, accustomed to English post-war food, Grace thought the meal which followed the most delicious she had ever eaten. The food, the wine, the heat, and the babel of French talk, most of which was quite incomprehensible to her untuned ear, induced a half-drunk, entirely happy state of haziness. When, after nearly two hours, the party rose from the table, she was floating on air. Everybody wandered off in different directions, and Charles-Edouard announced that he was going to be shut up in the library for the afternoon with his tenants and the agent.
    ‘Will you be happy?’ he said, stroking Grace’s hair and laughing at her for being, as he could see, so tipsy.
    ‘Oh I’m sleepy and happy and hot and sleepy and drunk and happy and sleepy. It’s too too blissful being so drunk and happy.’
    ‘Then go to sleep, and when I’ve finished we’ll do whatever you like. Motor down to the sea if you like, and bathe. I’m sleepy myself, but the régisseur has convened all these people to see me – they’ve been waiting too long already – I must go to them, so there it is. See you presently.’
    ‘All right. I’ll go and have a little word with Nanny and then a lovely hot sleep. Oh the weather! Oh the bliss of everything! Oh how happy I am!’
    Charles-Edouard gave her a very loving look as he went