A Moment in Paris Read Free Page B

he told her. ‘I’ll telephone and put back our luncheon arrangement by half an hour.’ Then he spoke sharply to Hortense as she arrived. ‘Show Mademoiselle Craven to her room, after which you must return here and assist Mademoiselle O’Brien to dress. And restore some sort of order to this room,’ he added, ‘it’s in a revolting state!’
    As Diana followed the trim figure of the maid along the thickly-carpeted corridor she heard Celeste apologizing once more.
    ‘I’m so sorry, Philippe!’ And she sounded abject.
    Diana thought: ‘So he’s fastidious. Fastidious and hard, and cold and punctual. And not above making the girl he’s going to marry look small in front of a complete stranger to her!’
    And she spared a much more sympathetic thought for Celeste.
    ‘It’s to be hoped she’s in love with him. Or would it be better, perhaps—from her point of view!—if she isn’t?’

 
    CHAPTER TWO
    Diana washed her hands and powdered her nose in a room that was so unlike the room she had occupied while she was governess to the Fleming children that she wished Margot could see it
    Margot was an attractive, butterfly personality who entertained lavishly, but did not concern herself overmuch with the comfort of those she employed. She and Diana had had a year together at the same Swiss finishing school, and that was one reason why Diana had thought it would be pleasant to work for her. But she had overlooked the fact that it is one thing to be young and carefree in a carefree establishment, and quite another to have to seek favours from an ex-roommate.
    Margot’s husband was some sort of junior attaché at the Embassy, and he enjoyed Paris almost as much as his wife did. Their flat had been a sort of club for their friends, both French and English, and their children had been left almost solely to the care of Diana. She had looked after them for three months, and endeavoured to get the better of a state of rowdy hoydenism which was the result of their having lived almost exclusively on the Continent without the right sort of supervision, and when Peter Fleming received an abrupt recall to London was almost relieved that she was to be deprived of a job.
    Not that she hadn’t grown very fond of the children—a boy and a girl—for they had some endearing qualities, but the endless parties that went on at the flat, and the apparently incurable irresponsibility of the parents, had begun to get her down.
    The one thing Margot had done for her was find her another position, and it was due to her that Diana had entered that imposing building where the Comte de Chatignard had an entire suite of offices. And now, owing to Margot, she had found her way to another imposing house that was one of the oldest in Paris, situated in a quarter that was occupied only by the cream of that fashionable world where money and elegance went hand in hand, and all-night parties were conducted in a manner that never disturbed the dignity of the atmosphere.
    Somewhere—in quite a different Paris—there were theatres and night-clubs and shops and midinettes, and serious vendeuses who sold the fabulous garments that were the heart and core of a smart Parisienne’s wardrobe; but here in this leafy corner there was none of that. In the spring it was a world of tender green; in the summer the spreading branches protected it from the trying heat of the sun, and on a February day such as this it was still and cold and grey ... and dignified.
    She looked out of her window at a kind of enclosed courtyard, in the middle of which a towering chestnut tree looked almost nakedly bare. And she thought how deliciously cool it would be beneath its branches in the summer.
    Then she took another appraising glance at herself in the mirror and decided she had done all she could to improve her appearance. She was not at all sure that her new hat suited her, but her hair curled softly beneath it, rather like the bronze-gold petals of a tulip turning up from