I laughed.

'You put it a bit bluntly, didn't you?'

'Well, I couldn't ask him to come to mine, because Odette was sleeping there,' she answered ingenuously. 'He looked at me with those kind eyes of his for a moment, then he smiled. "D'you want to come?" he said.

'"What do you think—with that fine body of yours?"

'"All right, come then."

'I went upstairs and undressed and then I slipped along the passage to his room. He was lying in bed reading and smoking a pipe. He put down his pipe and his book and moved over to make room for me.’

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Suzanne was silent for a while and it went against my grain to ask her questions. But after a while she went on.

'He was a strange lover. Very sweet, affectionate and even ten­der, virile without being passionate, if you understand what I mean, and absolutely without vice. He loved like a hot-blooded schoolboy. It was rather funny and rather touching. When I left him I had the feeling that I should be grateful to him rather than he to me. As I closed the door I saw him take up his book and go on reading from where he had left off.’ I began to laugh.

'I'm glad it amuses you,’ she said a trifle grimly. But she was not without a sense of humour. She giggled. 'I soon discovered that if I waited for an invitation I might wait indefinitely, so when I felt like it I just went into his room and got into bed. He was always very nice. He had in short natural human instincts, but he was like a man so preoccupied that he forgets to eat, yet when you put a good dinner before him he eats it with appetite. I know when a man's in love with me, and I should have been a fool if I'd believed that Larry loved me, but I thought he'd get into the habit of me. One has to be practical in life and I said to myself that it would suit me very well if when we went back to Paris he took me to live with him. I knew he'd let me have the child and I should have liked that. My instinct told me I'd be silly to fall in love with him, you know women are very unfortunate, so often when they fall in love they cease to be lovable, and I made up my mind to be on my guard.’

Suzanne inhaled the smoke of her cigarette and blew it out through her nose. It was growing late and many of the tables were now empty, but there was still a group of people hanging around the bar.

'One morning, after breakfast, I was sitting on the riverbank sewing, and Odette was playing with some bricks he'd bought her when Larry came up to me.

'"I've come to say good-bye to you," he said.

'"Are you going somewhere?" I said, surprised.

'"Yes."

'"Not for good?" I said.

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'"You're quite well now. Here's enough money to keep you for the rest of the summer and to start you off when you get back to Paris."

Tor a moment I was so upset I didn't know what to say. He sto­od in front of me, smiling in that candid way of his.

'"Have I done something to displease you?" I asked him.

'"Nothing. Don't think that for a moment. I've got work to do. We've had a lovely time down here. Odette, come and say good­bye to your uncle."

'She was too young to understand. He took her up in his arms and kissed her; then he kissed me and walked back into the hotel; in a minute I heard the car drive away. I looked at the banknotes I had in my hands. Twelve thousand francs. It came so quickly I hadn't time to react. "Zutalors*" I said to myself. I had at least one thing to be thankful for, I hadn't allowed myself to fall in love with him. But I couldn't make head or tail of it.'

I was obliged to laugh.

'You know, at one time I made quite a little reputation for my­self as a humorist by the simple process of telling the truth. It came as such a surprise to most people that they thought I was being funny.'

'I don't see the connexion.'

'Well, Larry is, I think, the only person I've ever met who's co­mpletely disinterested. It makes his actions seem peculiar. We're not used to persons who do things simply for the love of God whom they don't believe in.'

Suzanne stared at me.

'My poor friend, you've had too much to drink.'

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