We walked into Dinard. The magasin that enshrined "It" was near the
Casino, and there, in an impermanent little white-screened and
gilt-chaired shop that had hardly been open a fortnight and would close
down again the moment the season was over, I had a soothing half-hour
while Alec's money took wing.
"Mais tiens, Madame"--the saleswoman's witty fingers touched, hovered,
butterflied, while the hat became half a dozen different things under
the diablerie--"posé commé ça, en effet sur l'oreille--Claire, la voile
verte--legèrment--oh, m'sieu!" A delectable gesture of admiration of
everything and everybody concerned, the hat, the veil, Madge, herself,
as unabashed as the attitudinising of the sunbrowned young athletes. "On
dirait un sourire sur la tête de Madame!"
So, on a purely hypothetical rate of exchange, Madge bought three, and
we sought the teashop and Jennie.
All English-speaking Dinard meets at that teashop in the afternoon. From
four o'clock onwards it is a mob of youths in the blazers of Eton and
Charterhouse and the Old Merchant Taylors, forking gateaux from the
glass counters for themselves, their sisters, other fellows' sisters,
their sisters' friends. Their days sped in tennis, bathing, tennis, a
hurried déjeuner between the sets, tennis, watching tennis as they
waited for a partner or a court, a sudden flocking to the Le Bras for
tea, tennis, dancing, chocolates, and the programme for the tennis for
the next day. They filled the ground-floor of the shop, made a continual
coming and going on the staircase that led to the room upstairs. I
steered Madge towards the table where Jennie was already seated, and
found myself with young Rugby on my right, his shirt open at the neck,
flannels hitched up over his white-socked ankles. About me buzzed the
whirl of talk.
"He saw him at Ambleteuse, and he did it in ten in his walking-boots on
grass----"
"Rot! It's run in metres, not yards, and the record's ten and
seventh-tenths----"
"American----"
"I bet you----"
"Well, it's nearly the same, and in his boots on grass----"
"Oh, put your head in a bag! Jennie, we've got Number Four Court for
five-thirty, remember----"
"But I tell you this chap Arnaud----"
"Do let me get you one of those strawberry things, Mrs Aird----"
"My brother saw him--he just threw off his coat and waistcoat and ran as
he was----"
"Mademoiselle, trois thés, s'il vous plait----"
I spoke in Madge's ear.
"She's a very beautiful child."
"Jennie?" said proud Madge. "Rather a young queen, isn't she? But Alec's
perfectly absurd about her. Thinks young people to-day are the same as
we were. She shall have the best time I can give her."
"Any----?" I looked the question.
"No. Quite asleep. She's perfectly happy dancing and dreaming and
talking sport with these boys."
"Who are they?"
She told me. She knew half Dinard, and the printed Visitors' List gave
her the rest.
"Well, well," was all I found to say, as I looked at Jennie again.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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