“But how astonishing — I have met him.”
As a matter of fact, I had thought of Farebrother almost as soon as Monsieur Dubuisson had mentioned his own war record, because it had immediately occurred to me how much Jimmy Stripling would have loathed Monsieur Dubuisson, with his wounds and citations. Besides, Monsieur Dubuisson’s treatment of the circumstances of his war career made Farebrother’s references to his own military past seem infinitely fastidious.
“But why should you think it astonishing?” asked Monsieur Dubuisson, with one of his withering smiles, which spread over the whole of his face, crinkling the features into the shape of a formal mask of comedy, crowned with greyish-mauve locks. “Captain Farebrother is a man I know to go about a great deal in society. What could be more natural than that you should have met him?”
I did not know in those days that it was impossible to convince egoists of Monsieur Dubuisson’s calibre that everyone does not look on the world as if it were arranged with them — in this case Monsieur Dubuisson — at its centre; and, not realising that, in his eyes, the only possible justification for my turning up at La Grenadière would be the fact that I had once met someone already known to him, I tried to explain that this acquaintanceship with Farebrother seemed to me an extraordinary coincidence. In addition to this, if I had been old enough to have experienced something of the world of conferences and semi-political affairs, in effect a comparatively small one, it would have seemed less unexpected that their meeting had taken place.
“He was a good fellow,” said Monsieur Dubuisson. “There was, as a matter of fact, a small question in which Captain Farebrother had shown himself interested, and of which I later heard nothing. Perhaps you know his address?”
“I am afraid not.”
“It is of no consequence,” said Monsieur Dubuisson. “I can easily trace him.”
All the same he cleared his throat again, rather crossly. I felt that all this talk about the war, by reviving old memories, had put him out of his stride. He pulled at his pipe for a time, and then returned to the subject of Monsieur Örn and Monsieur Lundquist.
“Now you were present when this falling-out took place,” he said. “Can you recite to me the pertinent facts?”
I told him how matters had looked to me as a witness of them. He listened carefully to the story, which sounded — I had to admit to myself — fairly silly when told in cold blood. When I came to the end he knocked out his pipe against the leg of the seat, and, turning towards me, said quite tolerantly: “Now look here, Jenkins, you know you and I cannot believe eyewash of that sort. Grown-up men do not quarrel about such things.”
“What were they quarrelling about, then?”
‘Monsieur Dubuisson gave his slow, sceptical smile. He shook his head several times.
“You are no longer a child, Jenkins,” he said. “I know that in England such matters are not — not stressed. But you have no doubt noticed at La Grenadière the presence of two charming young ladies. You have?”
I conceded this.
“Very good,” said Monsieur Dubuisson. “Very good.”
He rose from the seat, and stood looking down at me, holding his hands behind his back.. I felt rather embarrassed, thinking that he had perhaps guessed my own feelings for Suzette.
“Then what is there to be done about it?” I asked, to break the silence.
“Ah, mon vieux,” said Monsieur Dubuisson. “Well may you ask what is to be done about it. To me — troubled as I am with a mind that leaps to political parallels — the affair seems to me as the problems of Europe in miniature. Two young girls — two gentlemen. Which gentleman is to have which young girl? Your Government wishes mine to devalue the franc. We say the solution lies in your own policy of export.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“I shrug my shoulders,” he said, “like a Frenchman on the London stage.”
I was entirely at a loss to know how to reply to his presentation of this political and international allegory in relation to the matter in hand: and I found myself unable to grasp the implications of the parallel he drew with sufficient assurance to enable me to express either agreement or disagreement. However, Monsieur Dubuisson, as usual, appeared to expect no reply. He said: “I appreciate, Jenkins, that you have come here to study. At the same time you may need something — what shall I say? — something more stimulating than the conversation which your somewhat limited fluency in the French language at present allows you to enjoy. Do not hesitate to talk with me when we are alone together on any subject that may happen to interest you.”
He smiled once again; and, while I thanked him, added: “I am conversant with most subjects.”
As he strolled back across the lawn towards the house, he stowed away his pipe, which he seemed to use as a kind of emblem of common sense, in the pocket of his black alpaca jacket, which he wore over fawn tussore trousers.
I remained on the seat, thinking over his remarks, which required some classification before judgment could be passed on them. I could not accept his theory that jealousy about the girls, at least jealousy in any straightforward form, was at the bottom of the quarrel; because, in so much as the Scandinavians were to be thought of in connection with Berthe and Suzette, each had paired off — if such an expression could be used of so amorphous a relationship — with a different girclass="underline" and everyone seemed perfectly happy with this arrangement. Berthe, as I have said, undoubtedly possessed a slight weakness for Monsieur Örn, which he recognised by markedly chivalrous behaviour towards her, when any such questions arose as the pumping-up of tyres of her bicycle, or carrying parcels back from the village when she did the shopping. Like Berthe, Monsieur Örn, too, was engaged; and he had, indeed, once handed round a small, somewhat faded, snapshot of himself sitting in ski-ing costume in the snow with his fiancée, who came from Trondhjem. Monsieur Lundquist, on the other hand, although interest in himself allowed him to show no more than moderate preference towards girls, or anyone else, seemed distinctly inclined towards Suzette. In so much as this allocation could be regarded as in any way part of a system, it also appeared to be absolutely satisfactory to everyone concerned. Indeed, the only person I knew of who might be said to have suffered from emotions that fell within the range of those suggested by Monsieur Dubuisson was myself; because, although the episode of the tennis court represented the more dramatic side of life at La Grenadière, the image of Suzette played in fact a far more preponderant part in my thoughts than the affairs of the Scandinavians, however unrestrained their behaviour.
I sometimes tried to sort out these feelings that had developed towards Suzette, which had certainly aroused from time to time a sensation of annoyance that Monsieur Lundquist should be talking animatedly to her, or helping her down the spiral staircase of some medieval building that we might be visiting. These were, I was aware, responses to be compared with those aroused by Jean Templer, with whom, as I have said, I now thought of myself as being “in love;” and I was somewhat put out to find that recurrent projections in the mind of the images of either of them, Jean or Suzette, did not in the least exclude that of the other. That was when I began to suspect that being in love might be a complicated affair.