by Jane Arbor
"It doesn't matter anymore. I shall forget it," she assured him.
"I hope you can." He shaded the luminous dial of his watch in order to read the time, then put a hand on her shoulder. "Are you feeling steadier now? Would you like to go back ?"
Alone with him, in accord with him, to go back was the very last thing she wanted. But as she hesitated he said, "I don't think you'll have to meet Odet again tonight. I hope Flore will have seen him off. I told her what had happened and that I was bringing you out—" which effectually broke the spell of a brief intimacy which only she, not he, found precious.
When they returned Rose looked first for Sylvie, whom she found at the buffet with Blaise. Sylvie looked happy and relaxed. She had even danced once or twice, though only with Blaise. "I couldn't inflict
myself on anyone else and expect them to be as sweet with me as he was," she said.
Rose next went in search of Flore, who greeted her effusively, then drew her aside.
"I'm terribly sorry about Claude Odet's forgetting himself so," she claimed. "But as he only stayed long enough to sweep up Marie-Claire and leave, of course I've only heard Saint-Guy's version of what happened."
Rose said, "Well, I wanted to tell you I'm sorry too—I mean, for being the cause of the trouble."
"You ?" Flore smiled thinly "Well, yes, I suppose you could say you were the immediate cause this time. But there's more to it than that. Anything—anything at all—can spark off a quarrel between those two, Saint-Guy and Claude, and all of it—too silly, isn't it ?—with its roots in jealousy over me ! For instance, on one hand there's Saint-Guy resenting every small attention Claude pays me, and on the other Claude, alternately sulking or going berserk as he did tonight. Such a pity though that he had to pick on you, mistaking you for the type of little gamine he usually runs after when he wants to work off some grievance with me. Petty of him, of course. But then men are, aren't they? Even Saint-Guy sometimes, in much the same way— And I suppose I really shouldn't have told Claude you kept a shop and that Saint-Guy had taken you under his wing. That alone may have made him regard you as fair game—"
At the veiled offensiveness of that Rose drew audible breath. But somehow (she is your hostess;
hold your horses!) she kept heat from her tone as she said,
"And yet, you know, I got the impression Monsieur Odet would have behaved exactly as he did with any other girl who had happened to be passing just then."
"Yes, perhaps," Flore agreed doubtfully. "Just as, naturally, Saint-Guy would have clipped him in the defence of any other girl than you. It's only that—" a small gesture of the hand—"oh well, let's forget it, shall we?"
"Forget what?"
"Nothing. It was just that I can't help thinking that if you had more—well, flair with men, you might have managed Claude's foolishness without involving Saint-Guy in an unpleasantness which I'd have preferred not to happen in my house. But there ! With you English girls it's the hockey-boot or nothing, isn't it? You haven't any real talent for finesse... Yes, coming, mon ami !" Flore's wave and her last words were in answer to someone's beckoning and her silver-clad figure sleeked away, leaving Rose without any ordinarily civil retort to a sheathed rancour which she was at loss to know how she had earned.
She thought she could imagine Flore's employing such velvet-glove tactics against someone she feared as a rival. But why turn them suddenly on herself ? Flore must know she was secure in the allegiance of the one person Rose secretly envied her. No dangerous competition there . . . Therefore, Rose concluded with a tolerance which cost her some effort, it could only be that she had been made the scapegoat for Flore's annoyance over the whole ugly episode. After all, no
one gave a party to have it marred by a show of fisticuffs— All the same, Rose wished she could register her own gesture of thanking Flore for her hospitality and leaving here and now. But neither Sylvie nor Blaise would want to go yet, and in fairness to them she must stay on.
Blaise came up, writhing in Twist gyrations which invited her to do the same. As she laughed and joined him he said, "I've only left young Sylvie on condition she doesn't speak a word of English to a soul while I'm away. For I'll have that girl taking her Baccakuréat in French before I've done with her, or know the reason why !"
Afterwards there was a semi-professional cabaret. Two or three of Flore's guests were television artistes, one of whom acted as compere to a programme of impromptu turns by the others and by such amateurs as could be pressganged into joining them. That brought the evening to its climax; after it people began to leave.
Rose and Sylvie were ready and waiting for Blaise to join them in thanking Flore, when he came across to tell them that Flore had gone.
"Gone? Gone where? What an odd thing to do before everyone has said goodnight to her !" said Sylvie.
"Yes, well, we're about the last. Seems she and her set have some sort of ploy on, and Saint-Guy took her in his car."
"You mean they've gone on to finish off the night somewhere else?"
"Could be—" Blaise sounded evasive and he changed the subject, leaving both girls puzzled until
his car lurched on to the pavé of the square and they saw the string of cars lined up before their own shop. Doors were being slammed; car radios competed, and by the light of powerful headlamps people were milling in front of La Boutique's darkened window. The gay noise was deafening.
"What on earth—?" The girls met Blaise's grin. "That was the ploy—" he began. Then Flore was there, laughing, her hands among those which were hustling them into the crowd round the shop door.
"Come along, open up—you've got customers !" cried Flore, and to the others, "Now, folks, have you all got your money ready? You have? Then make the most of it while you have it. For when you see the attractions our little friends have on offer, you won't have it long ! Now— !"
Rose stood slightly at bay, her back to the door, looking about her in bewilderment. "But—but we can't open the shop at this hour ! It's nearly three o'clock in the morning !" she protested.
"Darling !" On Flore's lips it was not an endearment. "This isn't England, all Shops Acts and Chambers of Commerce. It's France, where what you've got to sell you may, and good luck to you, whether it's in the small hours or whenever. So use your key and let them in, do. Can't you see how they're chafing ?"
Behind her Rose saw Saint-Guy, saw him nod. "All right, then," she said, and opened first the street door and then the inner one to the shop.
A tide flowed in after her. Casting about, sampling, laughing, clowning, Flore's friends took over. Blaise manned the counter, Rose and Sylvie each a display-stand. At first the custom was all for the expensive
items of the Bouquet consignment; men bought for the girls they were escorting, the girls bought for themselves. Then when that was gone they fell eagerly upon the rest—the gaudy handkerchiefs, the terracotta animals, the appliqued aprons which were all Maurinaire demanded when it wished to give itself a treat or to make 'a little gift.'
At last it was over. To the tune of shouted goodnights car-doors slammed again, exhausts roared and the caravanserai of cars left the square to its customary night-time peace. Blaise stayed to help to clear up and to count the takings. Then he too left.
The two girls looked at each other.
"Well, what d'you know?" marvelled Sylvie. "Talk about all this and heaven too ! That fab party, and then this. Flore must have laid it on, right from the time when she had Bouquet send us those things. She meant to put her set on to buying from us tonight ! All that lovely, lovely lolly in the till, Rose— As I said, it just doesn't do to judge people at sight. Flore Michelet is nice."
But Rose's chief reaction to the affair was her secret relief that it had freed them of any continuing obligation to Flore. Tomorrow Flore must be thanked for both her party and her 'ploy.' But now the whole consignment from Bouquet could be paid for, and it should be, Rose resolved.
They found they need not have worried—as they had—ab
out their neighbours' tolerance of the night's disturbance. When Rose apologised to Marie Durand, "I'm afraid we made a terrible racket," Marie wrote it off with a shrug.
"Indeed we heard it," she beamed. "Mais c'est la jeunesse—as I told Guilbert when he turned over in his bed with a grumble—just youth having its fling, I said. And who are we old ones who have had our own day—who are we to grudge you yours? Tell me that, Mademoiselle Rose?"
The girls spent most of the morning with their accounts, allotting some of the night's windfall of profit to bill-paying, the rest to renewing their depleted bread-and-butter stocks. They agreed not to disturb Flore too early by telephoning, but when Rose did so she knew she had been counting on the moment.
Over the line Flore's tone was lack-lustre, as if she were bored by saying the same things over and over to people who had called up to thank her for the party.
"Who? Oh yes, so nice of you to ring ... You enjoyed it ? Good ... So glad you were able to come ..." A tape-recording could hardly have sounded less sincere. But when Rose launched on their particular thanks for the 'ploy,' Flore cut in with a tart, "Oh, that caper? Why thank me? Forget it ! The idea didn't originate with me, I assure you !"
Rose's blank silence registered her surprise. Then, "Not with you ?" she echoed. "But you had had your factory send us all those things, and Blaise said—"
"Blaise!" Flore dismissed Blaise.
"You yourself, then," Rose persisted. "If you remember, you were kind enough to tell us to treat that consignment as a gift until we were able to sell it. Well, thanks to your rallying your friends as you did last night, we have sold it all, and now we'd like to
pay for it, please. In fact, I rang you to thank you and to tell you that I've written a cheque to the amount of the invoice, which of course we had filed in the ordinary way."
"Then as it has already been taken care of, you'd better un-file it and tear up your cheque," advised Flore shortly.
"But now you can't want us to accept it as a gift !" protested Rose.
"I don't. It never was a gift from me." Flore paused, then added, "Look, do you mind ? I'm in a hurry, and I'm more than a shade bored with the whole affair. So if you insist on being so stiff-necked about it, you must sort it out yourself with Saint-Guy."
"With Monsieur Saint-Guy? Why, what had he to do with it ?"
"The lot," said Flore crisply, and rang off.
Rose cradled her own receiver and turned to Sylvie. Her dismay working it out, "Flore says that it was by Saint-Guy's favour that we got the Bouquet consignment. I gather he paid for it ... Also that last night's plan to see that we sold it wasn't her idea at all, but his," she told Sylvie slowly. And knew as she spoke that she could neither explain her chagrin nor expect Sylvie to understand it.
For Sylvie hadn't fallen in love with a man who saw her only as a good cause, an object of benevolence, just one more lame dog . Rose had.
CHAPTER FIVE
BEFORE she was next due at the Chateau, Rose had had three days in which to nurse her discomfiture. Even then there was no certainty she would have a chance to voice it, as more often than not she worked through the afternoon without seeing Saint-Guy at all.
That Monday, however, he looked in on Madame's dictation of her letters to say that his own secretary had not shown up and he would be glad of Rose's services for an hour when they had finished.
"Of course you may borrow Rose—if she is willing. Shall she come to your office, or will you come back here?" his mother asked.
"She had better come to me, I think. It's some rather tricky tabulated stuff that can't be done on a portable." He turned to Rose. "I suppose I needn't ask whether you can cope with that kind of thing ?"
She told him she could, and when Madame Saint-Guy had finished with her, she went to his office, despising her inner tremor at the looming imminence of an opportunity she had been spoiling for.
He showed her the work he wanted her to do, then left her, returning just as she had checked her last pages of copy. He thanked her, looked them through and filed them, then offered, "I'll take you home."
That posed a difficulty. Rose said, "Thank you,
but in fact Blaise said he would. He's taking us to St. Tropez to see the night fishing-boats leave."
Saint-Guy lifted an eyebrow. "Really? In what transport, may one ask ?"
"I believe he was hoping to use your car."
"I see. Well, he can have it, though I'd have appreciated his mentioning the fact to me. I suppose he knows the time you are likely to be ready?"
"I told him it must depend on how much work Madame Saint-Guy had for me, but his time was all his own, he said." Rose paused, then braced herself to add, "You know, Monsieur Saint-Guy, I could wish, if you were determined to thrust your help on us, that you had done it in a less embarrassing way."
She had supposed he would know what she meant, but he looked genuinely surprised. "You're referring to— ?" he invited.
"Surely you know? That consignment of goods you ordered to be sent from Madame Michelet's factory—"
"That?" He frowned. "Who told you I had anything to do with that? Blaine, I suppose?"
"No. Madame Michelet."
"Flore? But—" He broke off. "How long have you known?"
"Since the day after her housewarming party. I rang her to thank her for bringing her friends down to the shop and to tell her we would now like to pay for the consignment. Earlier she had agreed that we should if we were able to sell it, so I had gathered—mistakenly, it seems—that it was she who had had it sent."
"But now she has told you it was my doing? She
must have misunderstood me when I asked her not to. And I daresay you can appreciate that that was because I could guess how your quaint ideas on solvency would react to such a gesture from me. Besides, her co-operation was necessary. As it came from Bouquet, I guessed you would first check with her before rejecting the stuff as not having been ordered. Also, it was no use your taking it into your stock if you couldn't sell it, so a concentration of customers in the shape of Flore's party guests seemed the answer to that."
"I see. It still seems an over-elaborate way of putting us under an obligation to you, don't you think ?" said Rose.
"You forget," he reminded her, "that if Flore had learned her lines thoroughly and had kept her counsel, you needn't have known your obligation was to me,"
(But Flore never meant to keep her counsel for good. Somehow she knows just how it needles me to be at the receiving end of your charity! flashed Rose's intuition.) Aloud she said recklessly, "You would have had the satisfaction of knowing you had made us beholden to you. And you remember, you called me `very young' for being determined to stand on my own feet !"
The trace of a smile lifted the corner of his mouth. "That went home, did it? Good. I could have used something stronger—" He paused to regard her thoughtfully. "You haven't forgiven me yet for being Saint-Guy, have you? For daring to exercise my right to make my tenants' problems my own and to deal with them as I see fit?"
"I think you could wait until a particular problem has been 'brought to you. And if it's a financial one, do you have to pass the hat with quite such a flourish?"
"And do you," he retorted, "have to reject a goodwill gesture as if it stung ?" He looked her over again, then blazed suddenly, "Mon dieu! just how narrow is your capacity for generosity? Don't you know that it's as bad to cheat others of the pleasure of giving as it is to be a tightfist yourself ?"
"Of course I do?"
"So— ?" The monosyllable carried disbelief.
"I mean," Rose explained, "that I've always hoped I take fairly generously. But I'm afraid there's a streak in me which resents financial help it hasn't asked for and doesn't acutely need."
"—and which comes, this instance, from the suspect bounty of a feudal overlord?" he prompted, then added, "Very well. If it does anything for that buckram-stiff streak of yours, I'll accept your cheque to the amount of the Bouquet consignment." He nodded towa
rds her handbag on the desk beside her. "At a guess, the figure is engraved on your brain and you brought your cheque-book with you?"
That irony again ! Rose bit her lip. "Yes, I did," she said, and reached for her bag.
As she wrote he stood close above her and took the cheque from her. "Tell me," he said conversationally, "just how well must one know you before being permitted to do you a well-meant kindness which involves money ?"
She looked up at him a little shamefacedly. "I—don't know. It's just that I've made—solvency—one
of my importances, I suppose. Perhaps because my father was rather careless in money matters and I've always wanted to believe I took more after my mother."
"That means more French than English. I wonder—? May I say that if you were as French as you would like to believe, you would know by an extra instinct that a man who is a man expects to dominate in money matters. And certainly you would never have been so gauche as to beard me over this affair, once it was done."
"Gauche?" (Had that nettled because she suspected it was deserved?)
"Cancel 'gauche.' Substitute 'English ' I've known it to mean the same thing." Watching the nervous irritation with which she straightened the desk-blotter, replaced the cover of the typewriter and took up her bag, he added mildly,
"Meanwhile, as I've conceded your victory this time by accepting your cheque, do you agree it shall be Pax between us until our next clash ?"
She summoned a reluctant smile. "I suppose so," she said, and stood, only to find his hand on the desk barring her way and, without warning, his lips briefly but with masterful firmness upon her own.
"No liberties intended. Just the kiss of peace—a custom a good deal more time-honoured than the droit de seigneur," he answered the dark bewilderment in her eyes—and let her go.
The next day there was a sheaf of carnations, morning gathered in the Château gardens and sent down by hand for Rose. The only message with them