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Gaston.
    “She changed her mind and stayed with papa. He has business in London. He goes back to India soon; she wants to be with him as long as possible,” said Flora defensively.
    “One understands. But you, do you not wish to be with your papa?” The porter from the Hotel Britannique, lounging beside Gaston, joined in the quiz.
    “Sometimes,” said Flora cautiously, “not always.” She sensed that Gaston and the other porter might be surprised if she told them that she hardly knew her father and was not all that keen on knowing him better. These family men were unlikely to understand or approve the mores of an Indian civil servant and his casual acceptance of constant separation.
    “I am all right,” she said.
    “And your lessons? You do your lessons with Mademoiselle?” queried Gaston, whose eldest son was working for his baccalaureat.
    “Of course I do,” lied Flora, conscious that with Mademoiselle’s connivance lessons had dwindled to a bare minimum. The porter from the Hôtel d’Angleterre, younger than his colleagues and unmarried, now remarked: “She amuses herself, this English child, she runs wild with old women’s dogs. It is laughable.” He laughed. “C’est fou.”
    “Madame Tarasova is teaching me Russian. In exchange, I exercise Igor.”
    “Of what use is Russian, a filthy Bolshevik language? Your situation is not comme il faut.”
    “Not convenable,” agreed the porter from the Hôtel Britannique, who had so far not contributed his opinion.
    “I wish you would all mind your own business,” said Flora unhappily. “What visitors are you expecting?”
    “English families,” said the porter from the Hôtel Britannique.
    “For me the same,” said the porter from the Hôtel d’Angleterre. “There are too many; I spit on them and their money.”
    “And I,” said Gaston, “am here to meet General Leigh, husband of the beautiful Madame Leigh.” Unconsciously Gaston drew himself up.
    “Lots of spit for him?” suggested Flora. “Oh,” she exclaimed, “look! Here comes the vedette! Quick, Igor, run, I must get you home.”
    The group of porters watched her disappear, dragging Igor behind her. “Has she seen the devil?” asked one.
    “Her parents,” said Gaston. “I recognise the mother; the man with her must be papa, that one in the black hat who feels the cold. The tall robust one beside them will be my client, the General, husband of the lady who spends so much of the money you despise patronising our modistes. Does not your sister work for the hat shop in the Rue de Tours?”
    The porters stopped lounging against the wall, straightened their caps and adopted obsequious expressions.
    While Flora raced through the town to deliver Igor to Madame Tarasova’s and on, panting, to rouse Mademoiselle from the sofa where she lolled with her novel, in the annexe of the Hôtel Marjolaine, Denys Trevelyan only marginally looked forward to meeting his daughter. He had disliked the crossing from Southampton and felt cold crossing the bay. He took his wife’s hand and tucked it against his side. She had introduced herself to Angus Leigh and was questioning him about the likelihood of a General Strike as though he were a politician or a trade unionist, in spite of his modestly explaining that he was a retired Army man, no better informed than anyone who read The Times or listened to the news on the wireless. If there were a General Strike, he said, he proposed leaving his wife in Dinard and motoring back by himself.
    “Just in case of trouble I’d like my wife to be out of things. One never knows these days whether things may not get rough.”
    “Oh, Denys. Did you hear that?” Vita looked up at her husband. “What shall we do if there is a strike? Will there be a revolution?”
    Denys Trevelyan repeated for the benefit of the General what his wife perfectly well knew. Come what may, his leave was up at the end of June and he must sail for India. Anyway, he said, more for the