Giles rose when they entered and inquired whether his smoke incommoded them, and the lady in grey, seeing again the stranger of the cliff-seat, smiled kindly and said: “_Mais pas du tout, monsieur._” She was charming with her slanting eyes and delicate, faded face. She carried still further, though, as it were to a different conclusion, the impression that madame Vervier had so strongly made upon him, of always knowing what she meant to do and of saying what she meant to say. Even her manner of bowing her head and smiling as she replied to him had a technique. That was the only word for it. They had a technique for everything, these French people, Giles more and more clearly saw it, and not only the Samurai-like ladies, but the peasants, the shop-keepers, the maids and waiters. If you presented them with a new situation, they passed the novelty by and gave you the old answer. The friends looked about them. The stout lady had a long piece of _broderie anglaise_, fastened, for more facility, to a strip of glazed green leather. The lady in grey had silk and a fine steel crochet needle. Giles could just see her long white hands from where he sat, with rings of black enamel set with pearls, and the long earrings on either side of her long white face were also of pearl and enamel. They observed the play of the four courts. Madame Vervier and her party played in the nearest, and what more natural than that the lady in grey should make her quiet comment. But though there was no disparagement in her voice, Giles felt a slight discomfort in hearing her. Had she not noted him as a foreigner and seen him as unattached, she would not, he knew, so have alluded to his hostess. “_Tiens!_” said the stout dark lady, and she laid down her embroidery to look at Alix’s mother. Madame Vervier playing tennis became an Artemis for speed, strength, lightness. She flashed there in the sunlight before them, her russet locks bound with white, her beautiful arms bare in the white tennis dress, her slender white-shod feet exquisite in their unerring improvisation. Her uplifted face, though so intent, had a curious look of indolent power. “And the tall child, is she the daughter?” the dark lady inquired. “I believe so. Yes. The daughter. She bears the name of Mouveray,” said the lady in grey. “Mouveray. _Précisément._ Her husband divorced her?” “Or she him. I do not remember. I do not know where the fault lay.” “And this is the husband’s child?” “Ah, that, _ma chère_, is more than I can tell you,” said the lady of the earrings with a touch of melancholy humour. “But she, also, is beautiful. I find her more beautiful than the mother.” “But with less charm,” said the stout lady, evidently of madame Dumont’s opinion, and she had even something of madame Dumont’s expression in pronouncing it. “_La mère est toute-à-fait séduisante. C’est une femme exquise._” “But the child has more distinction,” said the lady of the earrings.