Franky no longer battled with the grin that would have infuriated
Margot. Something had wiped it from his face.

“I said she was frightfully kind, but that I was quite
well-posted–everything was O.K., and she needn’t alarm herself…. And
she said, ‘Oh! if you’ve arranged things with Franky, jolly sensible of
him! Too often a man who is open and liberal-minded before marriage
develops gerontocracie afterwards, don’t you know? …’ And I told her
that you were the very reverse of narrow-minded–and she kissed me and
wished me happiness, and went away. And the maid knocked later on to
say Mrs. Stannus sent her apologies for having forgotten to leave her
little gift. And the little gift was, Jollikins. And my special pals
joined in to stand me a farewell dinner, and they drowned my enamel Club
badge in a bowl of Maraschino punch, and fished it up and gave me this
diamond and enamel one, mounted as a tie-brooch, instead. And every
married woman brought me a mascot…. I had Gojo from Joan Delabrand,
and Ti-Ti from Cynthia Charterhouse, and the jade tree-frog from Patrine
Saxham, and the carved African bean from Rhona Helvellyn, and—-“

Franky objected:

“Neither Patrine Saxham nor Rhona Helvellyn happen to be married women!”

“Perhaps not; but Patrine is an Advanced Thinker, and Rhona Helvellyn is
a Militant Suffragist.”

Franky commented:

“As for Suffragists, that Club of yours is stiff with ’em. Gassing about
their Cause…. I loathe the noisy crowd!”

“Then you loathe me! I share their convictions!” Margot proclaimed. “I
hold the faith that Woman’s Day will dawn with the passing of the Bill
that gives us the Vote….”

“My best child, you wouldn’t know what to do with the Vote if you had
it.”

Margot retorted:

“I cannot expect my husband to treat me as a reasonable being while the
State classes his wife with infants and imbeciles.”

It will be seen that a very pretty squabble was on the point of
developing. Fortunately, at this juncture a valet of the chambers
knocked at the door to say that a waiter from the restaurant begged to
know whether Milord and Miladi would take lunch _a la carte_, or prefer
something special in their own apartments?

“Tell him no!” wailed Miladi, to the unconcealed consternation of
Milord, who had a healthy appetite.

“Must keep up your pecker–never say die!” Franky, stimulated by the
pangs of hunger, developed an unsuspected talent for diplomacy. “Look
here! We must talk over things quietly and calmly. I’ll order a taxi,
and we’ll chuff to that jolly little restaurant in the Bois de
Boulogne–where you can grub in the open air under a rose-pergola–and
order something special and odd—-“

Since Eve’s day, this lure has never failed to catch a woman. Margot
began to dry her eyes. Then she asked Franky to ring.

“Three times, please…. That’s for Pauline; I want another
handkerchief.”

“Have two or three while you’re about it,” advised Franky, obeying,
returning, and perching on the arm of the settee. “And bathe your eyes
a bit, have a swab-over of the pinky cream-stuff, and a dab of powder.”
He brushed some pale mealy traces from his right-arm sleeve and
coat-lapel, ending, “And put on your swankiest hat and come along to
Nadier’s.”

“Could we get anything to eat at Nadier’s that we couldn’t get here–or
in London, at the Tarlton or the Rocroy? …”

“Stacks of things! For instance–_Canard a la presse_…. They squeeze
the juice out of the duck, you twig, with a silver kind of squozzer, and
cook it on a chafing-dish under your nose. Look here! …” Franky, now
desperate, produced his watch. “All the cushiest little tables will be
taken if you don’t look sharp.”

“Not on the day of the Grand Prix!”

Franky retorted, spurred to maddest invention by the pangs of hunger:

“My best child, there are about a hundred thousand wealthy Americans in
Paris who don’t care a red cent about racing, while with most of ’em–to
eat _canard a la presse_ at Nadier’s in the Bois de Boulogne in the June
season–is a–kind of religious rite!”

So Margot disappeared to dab her eyes and apply the prescribed touches
of perfumed cream and powder, and duly reappeared, crowned with the most
marvellous hat that ever promenaded the _ateliers_ of the Maison Blin on
the head of a milliner’s _mannequin_.

You are to imagine the tiny thing and her Franky seated–not in one of
the smart automobiles that wait for hire outside Spitz’s, but in a
little red taxi, borne along with the broad double stream of traffic of
every description that ceaselessly roared east and west under the now
withering red-and-white blossoms of the chestnut-trees of the Avenue of
the Champs Elysees, inhaling the stimulating breezes–flavoured with hot
dust and petrol, Seine stink, sewer-gas, coffee, patchouli, fruit, Regie
tobacco and roses–of Paris in the end of June.