"I would propose a glass of Chante Alouette '59 for all of us to start with," Wakerose said, studying the wine list, "and Rowena can finish the bottle with her chicken. You and I, Mr. Templar, can wash down our cailles with a red Rhône. Do you have any preference? They have a most impressive selection here. Or are you one of those people to whom all Châteauneuf du Pape is the same?"
"The Montredon is very good, I think," Simon said, without glancing at the list. "Especially the '55."
The meal ended with the score about even and all the amenities observed, though by the end of it the Saint thought there was an infinitesimal fraying at the edges of Wakerose's cultivated smoothness, and thought that he could surmise the reason. It was not that Wakerose would be seriously exasperated to have encountered an adversary who could meet him on level terms in his own specialty of going one better. Something more important seemed to preoccupy him, and the strain was cramping his style.
For dessert, Wakerose chose an almost calorie-free sorbet, but clairvoyantly anticipated Rowena's yearning for the crêpes flambées which the Petite Auberge, proud of its own recipe, disdains to call Suzette. But this time the Saint decided that he had been dietetically discreet enough all day, and could afford the indulgence of leaving Wakerose alone in his austerity.
"I'm so glad you can at least pretend to dissipate with me," Rowena said glowingly. "It makes me feel just a little less of a freak, even if you're only doing it to be polite, I love you for it."
Wakerose looked at her oddly.
"Mr. Templar has that wonderful knack of making everybody feel like somebody special," he commented. "It must have required superhuman will-power for him to remain a bachelor."
"Maybe I just haven't been lucky yet," Simon said easily. "I'm corny enough to be stuck with the old romantic notion that for every person there's an ideal mate wandering somewhere in the world; and when they meet, the bells ring and things light up and there's no argument. The coup de foudre, as the French call it. Some people settle for less, or too soon, and some people never find it, but that doesn't prove that it can't happen."
His gaze shifted once from Wakerose to Rowena and back again, as it might in any normal generality of discussion, but he knew that her eyes never left his face.
"One might call it the Some Enchanted Evening syndrome," Wakerose said sardonically. "Well, each of us to our superstitions. I cling to the one which maintains that brandy or a liqueur at the end of a meal is a digestive, although I know that medical authority contradicts me. Rowena enjoys a Benedictine. What would appeal to you?"
"I shall be completely neutral," said the Saint, "and have a B-and-B."
They took their coffee and liqueurs outside on the terrace. Rowena ordered her coffee in a large cup, liégeois, with a dollop of ice cream in it, and used it to swallow a pill from a little jewelled box; but the caffeine was not sufficient to stop her contributions to the conversational rally becoming more and more infrequent and desultory, and Wakerose had still not finished his long cigar when she stifled a yawn and excused herself.
"I'm folding," she said. "And I want to be bright tomorrow. Will you forgive me?" She stood up and gave her hand to the Saint, and he kissed it with an impudent flourish. "Thank you again for today — and what time does the private tour leave in the morning?"
"Shall we say ten o'clock again?"
"You're the boss. And tonight I'll leave my own call at the desk, so you won't be kept waiting. Goodnight, Saville."
Wakerose tracked her departure with elegantly lofted eyebrows, and made a fastidious business of savoring another puff of smoke.
"My felicitations," he said at last. "You appear to have her marvellously intimidated, which is no mean feat. But I would advise you, if I may, not to presume too much on this docility. I've seen it before, and I feel I have a duty to warn you. Behind that submissiveness there lurks a tiger which even professional hunters have mistaken for a fat cat."
There was an inherent laziness in the balmy Provençal evening which allowed the Saint to take a long leisurely pause before any answer was essential, which helped to cushion the abruptness of the transition he had to make.
"There was something I wanted to talk to you about," he said, "but not quite as publicly as this." He turned his head from side to side to indicate the other guests at adjacent tables, within potentially embarrassing earshot. "I wonder if you'd like to see my room? I don't know what yours is like, but I think mine is exceptionally nice, and you might find it worth remembering if you ever come here again."
Wakerose's brows repeated their eloquent elevation, but after a pointedly puzzled pause he said: "Certainly, that sounds interesting."
They went in through the foyer and past the stairs. Simon's room was on the ground floor, in a wing beyond the inner lounge. He unlocked the door, ushered Wakerose in, and shut the door again behind them.
Wakerose looked methodically around, put his head in the bathroom, and said: "Very nice indeed. But you had something more than comparative accommodations to talk about, didn't you?"
The Saint opened his suitcase, rummaged in it and took out a pack of cigarettes, and dropped the lid again. He opened the package and then put it down nervously without taking a cigarette.
"I haven't seen you smoking before," Wakerose said.
"I'm trying to quit," Simon explained, and went on suddenly: "I won't waste your time beating about the bush. I want to marry your stepdaughter."
Wakerose rocked back on his heels, and anything he had previously done with his eyebrows became a mere quiver compared with the way they now arched up into his hair line.
"Indeed? And what does Rowena think about it?"
"I haven't asked her yet. It may be an oldfashioned formality, but I felt I should tell you first. I thought that a gentleman of the old school like yourself would appreciate that."
"I do. Oh, I do, most emphatically. But you can't seriously imagine that I would be so overwhelmed that I should give my permission, let alone my blessing, to a suitor such as yourself?"
"If Rowena isn't twenty-one yet, she can't be far from it. So she'll be able to make up her own mind soon enough. I just wanted to be honest about my intentions; and I hoped you'd respect them, and that we could be friends."
Wakerose widened his eyes again elaborately.
"Honest? Respect?" he echoed. "After you gave your word of honor—"
"Not to steal her jewels," Simon said. "Her heart isn't a diamond — I hope. We've only spent one day together, but I think she feels a little the same about me as I do about her."
"I could scarcely help noticing the feeling," Wakerose said. "But I beg to doubt if its nature is the same. Rowena is a sweet girl, but you can't seriously expect me to believe that she is attractive in that way to such a man as yourself."
"When I take her to a good specialist, and she loses about fifty pounds," Simon said steadily, "I think she'll be one of the most beautiful young women that anyone ever saw."
Wakerose laughed hollowly.
"My poor fellow. Now I begin to comprehend your delusion. Obviously she hasn't told you what's the matter with her."
"About that 'adipochria'?" Simon said steadily. "Yes, she has. And I'm prepared to bet my matrimonial future that there's no such disease known to medical science, and that the doctor who diagnosed it is nothing but an unscrupulous quack."
The other's eyes narrowed.