Mademoiselle gasped. ‘You no longer live . . .’ she began, then something in Stephen’s face warned her kind but bewildered guest not to question. ‘I am deeply grieved to hear of your father’s death, my dear,’ she said very gently. Stephen answered: ‘Yes—I shall always miss him.’ There ensued a long, rather painful silence, during which Mademoiselle Duphot felt awkward. What had happened between the mother and daughter? It was all very strange, very disconcerting. And Stephen, why was she exiled from Morton? But Mademoiselle could not cope with these problems, she knew only that she wanted Stephen to be happy, and her kind brown eyes grew anxious, for she did not feel certain that Stephen was happy. Yet she dared not ask for an explanation, so instead she clumsily changed the subject. ‘When will you both come to tea with me, Stévenne?’ ‘We’ll come to-morrow if you like.’ Stephen told her. Mademoiselle Duphot left rather early; and all the way home to her apartment her mind felt exercised about Stephen. She thought: ‘She was always a strange little child, but so dear. I remember her when she was little, riding her pony astride like a boy; and how proud he would seem, that handsome Sir Philip—they would look more like father and son, those two. And now—is she not still a little bit strange?’ But these thoughts led her nowhere, for Mademoiselle Duphot was quite unacquainted with the bypaths of nature. Her innocent mind was untutored and trustful; she believed in the legend of Adam and Eve, and no careless mistakes had been made in their garden! 4 The apartment in the Avenue de la Grande Armée was as tidy as Valérie’s had been untidy. From the miniature kitchen to the miniature salon, everything shone as though recently polished, for here in spite of restricted finances, no dust was allowed to harbour. Mademoiselle Duphot beamed on her guests as she herself opened the door to admit them. ‘For me this is very real joy,’ she declared. Then she introduced them to her sister Julie, whose eyes were hidden behind dark glasses. The salon was literally stuffed with what Mademoiselle had described as her ‘treasures.’ On its tables were innumerable useless objects which appeared for the most part, to be mementoes. Coloured prints of Bouguereaus hung on the walls, while the chairs were upholstered in a species of velvet so hard as to be rather slippery to sit on, yet that when it was touched felt rough to the fingers. The woodwork of these inhospitable chairs had been coated with varnish until it looked sticky. Over the little inadequate fireplace smiled a portrait of Maman when she was quite young. Maman, dressed in tartan for some strange reason, but in tartan that had never hob-nobbed with the Highlands—a present this portrait had been from a cousin who had wished to become an artist.