I did not understand that my father's wish for me to talk French was part of any definite scheme, and for the life of me I cannot make out why he settled upon my profession and told me nothing about it, but I suppose that unless I ever become a parent there are some things which will puzzle me all my life.
"One of the reasons the English are hated on the Continent is because they can only speak their own language, and when they are not understood they shout," he said to me, and I am afraid I did not care much what the English were thought of on the Continent; at any rate I did not see what I could do to make them more popular. "I intend that you shall at least be able to speak French properly," he went on; "you are not going to stay with us at the hotel, but live with a French family about three miles out of the town."
I detested the idea and had to submit to it, but I acknowledge that I enjoyed my visit to France, though I was told that I spent too much time at the hotel. The fact was that my family lived three miles up hill from the town, and on a bicycle I could reach the sea or my people in a few minutes, but after I had bathed I had to think a lot before I started back. I was arrested twice, once for riding furiously and also for not having my name on my bicycle, accidents which my father assured me would never have happened had I been able to talk French fluently, though it was absolutely impossible that I could under any circumstances or in any language have talked as fluently as the policeman who stopped me. My French family were very nice to me, and we got on splendidly together after they discovered that I did not mind them laughing at my pronunciation. After two months, during which I had attacked the language vigorously, Nina came from Paris to join us. I expected that she would find my accent amusing, but I made a mistake. What my mother had once mentioned to me as her awkward age had been lived through, and after a few days I began to wonder why I had ever found it easy to be irritated with her. If things go well I generally have an attack of thinking them perfect, but all the same Nina and I became better friends than we had been since I had left school, and we were together so often that nothing but a promise to talk French to her prevented my people from forbidding me to come near the hotel.
On Saturday afternoons, however, I stipulated that I should do and talk what I pleased, but unless I went to the Casino there was not much to do on my first holiday after Nina had arrived; so I persuaded her to come to a concert, have tea on the terrace, and then watch the "petits chevaux." She was ready to do anything, but my mother detested any kind of gambling, and begged me not to take her into the room in which the tables were. I could have imagined the time when to be told that something was not good for her was the surest way to make Nina want it, but now she said at once that she would much rather sit on the terrace than stay in a room with a crowd of people, and after tea I left her for a few minutes while I went for a walk through the rooms. There was a crowd round each table, and not being able to see anything I was going back to Nina at once when I felt some one touch me on the arm. I turned round quickly for I suspected that my pocket was being picked, though that would not have caused me any serious inconvenience, and before I could remember what I ought not to say I had exclaimed "Good Heavens," but if people will turn up in utterly unlikely places they ought not to be too critical of the way in which they are greeted. I should as soon have expected to see Mr. Edwardes at a Covent Garden Ball as the Warden in a French Casino, and I had an intense and immediate desire to ask him what he was doing there. I suppressed it, however, and only shook him so violently by the hand that he winced perceptibly.
"I have been guilty of watching your movements for the last four minutes," he said, as we walked towards the door leading to the terrace. "I observed you as you entered this chamber of horrors, and I was afraid that you were about to give an exhibition of your generosity."
"Did you think I was going to play?" I asked.
"Yes, if that is the right expression for an act of madness. There are, if I have observed exactly, eight chances against you, and the fool, for believe me he is a fool, who is fortunate enough to win is paid seven times his stake. The man who tries to make money in that way must be generous and a fool."
"The bank must win to pay for the croupiers and keep the place going," I said.
"In my opinion there is no acute necessity for the place to be kept going, as you express it. I entertain a hope that if you have ever taken part in that orgie, at which every one with the exception of the croupiers looks greedy and hungry, that you will in the future abstain from it. Gambling is the meanest of all vices," he said slowly, and he tapped my arm seven times.
He did not seem to be going anywhere in particular, and as I cannot bear anybody tapping at me, I thought Nina might help to calm him. So I walked down the terrace and introduced her to him suddenly, for he had a reputation for bolting from strange ladies, and I thought it best to leave nothing to chance. But as soon as he saw Nina the cloud disappeared from his face, and his aggressively moral mood changed. In fact I distinctly heard him say "delightful," though I am sure that he did not intend his remark to be audible. He inspected Nina as if she was for sale or on show, but he so clearly approved of her that she did not seem to mind him.