“I failed once before in doing that,” she observed with a strange smile.
“You have learnt a great deal since then,” he retorted.
“I think that I have learnt nothing that changes me very much.”
“Could you climb along the bough of that tree now?”
“Of course I could,” she assured him, “if I took off my skirt. On the other hand, Madame does not like her skirts taken off. I have to be careful even how I sit down. It is a strange feeling, always wearing clothes that do not belong to you. I am happiest when I get home and put on an old crêpe de Chine frock which I bought with my first month’s salary.”
“Does any one ever offer to buy you frocks?” he asked, with a sudden twinge of jealousy.
“Dozens of people. Generally gentlemen who have been in with their wives the afternoon before and make some pretence to come back again. Laurette is the fortunate one, because she sometimes very discreetly goes out to dinner with one of them, then she wears a frock of the establishment and she does not have to return it. Myself,” she sighed, “no one makes me offers now. They have decided that I am a foolish girl.”
He beamed upon her.
“You are a very wise one,” he declared. “Shall I give you a frock?”
She looked at him curiously.
“Would you like to, Monsieur Roger?”
“I’d love to! My aunt and I between us, if you like.”
The smile left her lips.
“A frock is not necessary for me,” she confided. “I can always wear what I choose and I do not go out in the evenings unless it is for the Maison. We must go and talk to Lord Erskine. He looks very lonely.”
“Not so lonely as I shall be if you leave me,” he complained.
“Then you can come too. You observe that I am wearing a white gabardine skirt and your garden seats are not very clean. One has to remember things like that when the skirt belongs to the Maison! I shall make a promenade.”
“Very well,” he assented sulkily. “Go and find Erskine.”
She laughed and held out her hand.
“Come with me,” she begged. “It is a neighbourhood full of dangers, this. Another wild man may appear. Did you know that Monsieur Viotti had reformed? He has approached Madame Vinay. They are great friends and they go to the cinema together. He has demanded my hand in marriage.”
Roger rose to his feet.
“Look here, you little devil—” he began.
“I am not a little devil any longer,” she interrupted him. “I am a grown-up young lady, second mannequin at the great house of Prétat. It is not in the least extraordinary that Monsieur Viotti should ask for my hand in marriage. I am old enough to be at least fiancée.”
“How the mischief old are you?” he demanded.
“Ah, no one has ever told me that,” she regretted. “That is what comes of being born a ragamuffin. Only I know that I was old enough to be hurt when you found me….”
Lady Julia came out of the house in great good humour.
“I have had a very pleasant sleep,” she announced, “and your excellent Mrs. Bardells has given me a cup of tea which I could drink. We will lunch with you again, Roger. You are quite ready, Jeannine?”
“Quite, Lady Julia,” the girl answered. “Will you take my arm?”
“I rather thought,” Roger suggested, “that I might drive home Mademoiselle Jeannine in the Packard and you could take Erskine in the limousine. You can tell him more stories about how you used to flirt with his father.”
“I shall do nothing of the sort,” Lady Julia replied. “You have seen quite enough of Jeannine for one day. She is a very sweet girl and she pleases me very much, but she must not be spoilt nor must her head be turned.”
Roger Sloane sighed as he handed Lady Julia into her car.
“And I once thought that you were my favourite aunt!”
“So I ought to be. Don’t forget that if you finish your tennis in time, I like to be taken into the Sporting Club bar and given a cocktail at seven o’clock.”
“We’re not playing this afternoon,” Roger told her, “so I shall be there.”
“A thousand thanks for the delicious lunch,” Jeannine murmured, leaning forward.
“And you ate nothing,” he reminded her.
She waved her hand.
“I must remain slim enough to wear the frocks of the Maison Prétat!”
Lady Julia suddenly changed her mind. After all, Erskine was a pleasant youth and there were a few family questions she had forgotten to ask him.
“A wave of good nature has come over me,” she declared. “You can take Jeannine, but drive carefully and don’t loiter. Send Reggie along at once. It is time I started.”
Jeannine dismounted demurely.
“You like to take me?” she asked Roger.
“I’ll say so,” he answered, as he handed her into the Packard.
Roger seemed smitten with an inexplicable dumbness that afternoon, and Jeannine herself appeared to be curiously content with his silence. They stopped for a few moments in Nice and he bought roses at the shop where Jeannine had served her apprenticeship, and chocolates next door. Then they mounted to the Moyen Corniche and paused once or twice to look down at the marvellous view.
“You are happy in this new life of yours?” he ventured.
“It is far more wonderful than anything I could have dared to hope for,” she replied.
“But you are contented?”
“Is any one contented with life?” she asked a little restlessly. “It never gives with both hands and it never gives precisely what you want.”
“What is it you want?”
She smiled.
“Your questions,” she complained, “they are like bombshells. A year ago I could have answered you. Now life has become more confused.”
“I believe,” he said, “that you would have liked me better if—if I had—”
She broke into her old laugh. Roger felt himself more than ever a bungler.
“You are a great cavalier,” she mocked him. “Do you mind if I tell you that you make me think sometimes of that strange knight who went about with a lance and a fat steward? They made an opera about him.”
“A half-baked idiot he was,” Roger declared angrily. “Supposing I drive on and take you across the frontier into Italy.”
“It would annoy your aunt very much,” she pointed out, “and Prétats would probably issue a procès against me for going away in their precious clothes!”
“And you,” he persisted. “How should you feel about it?”
She smiled in puzzling fashion.
“I’ve left off feeling,” she confided. “Once I felt too much.”
They passed through La Turbie and swung around to the right. He brought the car to a standstill in front of the café and raised his hat in greeting to two strange-looking people—a man and a woman—who were seated side by side at one of the outdoor tables. The man was toying with a guitar. The woman was seated with her hands in front of