"The party?"
"I mean, Ma'am, the rich party that's took a fancy to Susan?"
"No, he is not. I have never so much as seen him. Neither has Susan. But what did I promise? Didn't I give you my word that, if he came here, I would let you know? That's why I'm so vexed, Gibson, at your coming like this."
He accepted the rebuke without a word.
"What are you going to do now?" I asked.
"I suppose, Ma'am," he said slowly and painfully, "I'd better go back to Granpong."
I asked him a few questions. It turns out that he came over on Saturday, viâ Southampton and "Lee Harver." He held a letter from a chauffeur he had met in Derlingham to a Havre motor-accessories firm. The Havre people, hearing he wanted to be near Sainte Véronique, gave him a letter to a small cycle and motor jobber in Grandpont who speaks a little English. He boards and lodges Gibson, and teaches him the driving and mending of cars, in return for English conversation, Gibson's labour, and thirty francs a week.
"Of course, if you object to me staying on at Granpong, Ma'am..." said Gibson.
"If I'd known beforehand I should have objected very much, Gibson," I said. "But you've been so lucky in your arrangements, I hardly like to disturb them. Give me your Grandpont address."
Gibson gave me a printed card. He is staying "À la Descente des Automobilistes." The "Descente" announces, on a card adorned with crossed billiard-cues over a foaming bock, that it speaks Englisch, and that it is equal to billiards, coffee, repairs, and beefsteacks à toute heure.