“ Eh bein,” said Frid, “ maintenant, nous parlerons comme si le monsieur n’était pas la.”
“Frid!” cried her mother. “ Attention!” Frid peered down the length of the room and, raising her voice, said to the constable: “I do hope you won’t mind us trying to talk in French. You see, we have got one or two things to discuss and as they are sort of rather private it will be less embarrassing for all of us, won’t it? I mean, you won’t feel that we are too odiously rude, will you?”
The policeman rose, cleared his throat and said: “No, Miss,” and, as though he ardently desired a ruling on the point, cast an anguished look at the door. After a moment’s hesitation he again took the arm-chair offered by Colin, and now all the Lampreys could see of him was the top of his head, which was red.
“ That’s all right, then, Mummy,” said Frid. “ Alors. A propos des jumeaux …”
Roberta’s heart sank. Charlot and Lord Charles, she knew, spoke French with some fluency. Frid had been to a finishing school in Paris. Henry and the twins had attended the university at Grenoble and had spent most of their holidays with friends on the Cote d’Azur. Even Patch and Mike, in the New Zealand days, had made life hideous for a sweating Frenchwoman who had followed the Lampreys to England and was still sporadically employed during the holidays. Roberta, on the contrary, had merely taken French at school and knew from bitter experience that when the Lampreys spoke in that language their conversation resembled a continuous rattle of fricatives and plosives, maddeningly leavened with occasional words that Roberta could understand. They were at it now. Lord Charles seemed to expostulate, Henry to argue. The twins were comparatively silent and looked mulish. Once, in answer to a prolonged harangue from Frid, Colin said: “ Laisse-tu donc tranquille, Frid. In fact, shut up.”
Henry said: “This is fun for Robin, I must say.”
“Darling Robin,” said Charlot, “you don’t mind, do you?”
“Of course I don’t. And I have followed a bit.”
“ Taisez-vous, donc!” commanded Frid dramatically. “ Ecoutez!”
“What’s the matter?” asked Henry testily.