‘I should like to see the old house,’ said Stephen.
So Valérie went to the telephone there and then and proceeded to call up the landlord. The appointment was made for eleven the next morning. ‘It’s rather a sad old house,’ she warned, ‘no one has troubled to make it a home for some time, but you’ll alter all that if you take it, because I suppose you’ll make it your home.’
Stephen flushed: ‘My home’s in England,’ she said quickly, for her thoughts had instantly flown back to Morton.
But Valérie answered: ‘One may have two homes—many homes. Be courteous to our lovely Paris and give it the privilege of being your second home—it will feel very honoured, Miss Gordon.’ She sometimes made little ceremonious speeches like this, and coming from her, they sounded strangely old-fashioned.
Brockett, rather subdued and distinctly pensive as sometimes happened if Valérie had snubbed him, complained of a pain above his right eye: ‘I must take some phenacetin,’ he said sadly, ‘I’m always getting this curious pain above my right eye—do you think it’s the sinus?’ He was very intolerant of all pain.
His hostess sent for the phenacetin, and Brockett gulped down a couple of tablets: ‘Valérie doesn’t love me any more,’ he sighed, with a woebegone look at Stephen. ‘I do call it hard, but it’s always what happens when I introduce my best friends to each other—they foregather at once and leave me in the cold; but then, thank heaven, I’m very forgiving.’
They laughed and Valérie made him get on to the divan where he promptly lay down on the lute.
‘Oh God!’ he moaned, ‘now I’ve injured my spine—I’m so badly upholstered.’ Then he started to strum on the one sound string of the lute.
Valérie went over to her untidy desk and began to write out a list of addresses: ‘These may be useful to you, Miss Gordon.’
‘Stephen!’ exclaimed Brockett, ‘Call the poor woman Stephen!’