shall have to collect him from the station. I know you’ll take care of them. Perhaps we could have a proper talk in a day or two.’
‘How long is your friend staying?’ asked Maud.
‘David? A couple of weeks, I think. He is English. I met him last year in Cambridge. I’m sure you’ll like him.’
Of that he had no doubt: all the girls he had known during that visit to Cambridge, made to perfect his English, which was already good, had seemed to like David. Yet, stealing an appreciative but experienced sidelong glance at Maud, Xavier thought she might be the exception to the rule. She was untouched, that was quite clear: her stern and remote expression, which she had inherited from her mother, made her seem older than her nineteen years. And he discerned in her, as well as her obstinacy, a certain fearfulness that had kept her at home and had inhibited whatever desires she had, or must have, in that rather splendid body. She was handsome, he could seethat, but she was rigid, cautious: that stern expression on her golden face (the slight tan having been acquired during the afternoons she spent with her mother, sitting in the garden of the Château d’Eau) was not likely to appeal to his worldly friend, who had seemed, during that month in Cambridge, to appreciate easier, livelier girls, given to shrieking their delight, and willing to stay up all night, moving from one party to another. At least he hoped she would not appeal: he did not want an awkward situation on his hands, and he intended to keep his mother from expressing her disapproval. Of his aunt’s reaction he was quite sure: he knew her to be a prude, was used to his mother’s commiserations, and preferred to keep on purely formal terms with a woman who, he suspected, had designs on him. He did not intend to hand over his friend to her scrutiny.
Over and above those considerations, however, was a desire to keep that friend out of harm’s way, and to detach him from the company that his mother was sure to provide, in the shape of the two silly nieces of their nearest neighbours, the Dubuissons, or Du Buissons, as they preferred to style themselves, and who would inevitably stroll over with tennis racquets on the following afternoon. He half wanted to pursue his own interest in David, who, during that month in Cambridge, had inspired in him feelings he had not hitherto suspected. When he had appeared in the doorway of Xavier’s lodgings in Selwyn College and asked him if he had everything he wanted, and whether he knew his way about, explaining that he himself was a recent graduate who had taken on a summer job of showing these students—most of them tourists, Americans for the most part, tempted by the prospect of a month at a Cambridge college, some of them even determined to do a little work—around the university and the city and providing them with such entertainment as might be covered by their fee.
‘I have a list of the lectures,’ Xavier had said; he was one of those prepared to work hard. ‘But it is very kind of you.’ He was charmed by the Englishness of this caller, his height, his graceful body in a blue open-necked shirt and cotton trousers, his abundant curling hair growing low on his forehead, and his thin hawklike nose. He thought him splendid-looking, and felt a glow of appreciation at being included in this man’s company, however briefly. He allowed himself to be taken out to a pub, where he drank a pint of powerful English beer, although he had been planning a studious walk. The beer made him sleep through the afternoon, so that he missed a lecture. When he awoke he told himself that this must stop, but when David looked in after dinner and announced that there was some sort of party going on at a friend’s flat, it seemed natural to fall in with him. That had been the pattern of the succeeding days and nights. Little work got done; on the other hand his conversational English benefited from the bewildering turnover of
‘How long is your friend staying?’ asked Maud.
‘David? A couple of weeks, I think. He is English. I met him last year in Cambridge. I’m sure you’ll like him.’
Of that he had no doubt: all the girls he had known during that visit to Cambridge, made to perfect his English, which was already good, had seemed to like David. Yet, stealing an appreciative but experienced sidelong glance at Maud, Xavier thought she might be the exception to the rule. She was untouched, that was quite clear: her stern and remote expression, which she had inherited from her mother, made her seem older than her nineteen years. And he discerned in her, as well as her obstinacy, a certain fearfulness that had kept her at home and had inhibited whatever desires she had, or must have, in that rather splendid body. She was handsome, he could seethat, but she was rigid, cautious: that stern expression on her golden face (the slight tan having been acquired during the afternoons she spent with her mother, sitting in the garden of the Château d’Eau) was not likely to appeal to his worldly friend, who had seemed, during that month in Cambridge, to appreciate easier, livelier girls, given to shrieking their delight, and willing to stay up all night, moving from one party to another. At least he hoped she would not appeal: he did not want an awkward situation on his hands, and he intended to keep his mother from expressing her disapproval. Of his aunt’s reaction he was quite sure: he knew her to be a prude, was used to his mother’s commiserations, and preferred to keep on purely formal terms with a woman who, he suspected, had designs on him. He did not intend to hand over his friend to her scrutiny.
Over and above those considerations, however, was a desire to keep that friend out of harm’s way, and to detach him from the company that his mother was sure to provide, in the shape of the two silly nieces of their nearest neighbours, the Dubuissons, or Du Buissons, as they preferred to style themselves, and who would inevitably stroll over with tennis racquets on the following afternoon. He half wanted to pursue his own interest in David, who, during that month in Cambridge, had inspired in him feelings he had not hitherto suspected. When he had appeared in the doorway of Xavier’s lodgings in Selwyn College and asked him if he had everything he wanted, and whether he knew his way about, explaining that he himself was a recent graduate who had taken on a summer job of showing these students—most of them tourists, Americans for the most part, tempted by the prospect of a month at a Cambridge college, some of them even determined to do a little work—around the university and the city and providing them with such entertainment as might be covered by their fee.
‘I have a list of the lectures,’ Xavier had said; he was one of those prepared to work hard. ‘But it is very kind of you.’ He was charmed by the Englishness of this caller, his height, his graceful body in a blue open-necked shirt and cotton trousers, his abundant curling hair growing low on his forehead, and his thin hawklike nose. He thought him splendid-looking, and felt a glow of appreciation at being included in this man’s company, however briefly. He allowed himself to be taken out to a pub, where he drank a pint of powerful English beer, although he had been planning a studious walk. The beer made him sleep through the afternoon, so that he missed a lecture. When he awoke he told himself that this must stop, but when David looked in after dinner and announced that there was some sort of party going on at a friend’s flat, it seemed natural to fall in with him. That had been the pattern of the succeeding days and nights. Little work got done; on the other hand his conversational English benefited from the bewildering turnover of
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