Time and Time Again Read Free

you remind him when the time comes. . . . SEVENTEEN, Mr. Anderson--remember that.'
    Charles, basking in the thought that Mrs. Fuessli must like him at least enough to make fun of him, felt indulgent--a little puzzled by, but also warm to his hosts. 'All right. Seventeen it shall be. Gerald, you and I have a date.' He laughed, and hoped the Americanism did not come from him too solemnly.
    Hence, in part, the letter Charles wrote to Gerald in Switzerland eleven years later. Of course he had taken the boy out to dinner countless times already, and for that matter Michelet's had gone (victim of a V2 during the last year of the war); yet the memory of that conversation at Parson's Corner had impressed on Charles an obligation which he assumed all the more gladly because he could call to mind Mrs. Fuessli's pretty face.

    * * * * *

    Whatever else about him was in doubt, there could be none about his genuine affection for his son. It was not only his deepest emotion, it was his most difficult, and he was a man who found many of his emotions difficult. Actually, the seventeenth-birthday dinner soon became far more than a pleasure to be looked forward to; it grew to be a symbol in his mind of something he hoped would eventually flourish--an adult, man-to-man friendship between father and son. During the decade that followed his visit to Parson's Corner Charles had seen Gerald rather infrequently, even after the boy's return from America, for then had come the school years, with holidays often spent at the home of school friends, since it was usually impossible to fit them in with Charles's periods of leave. But most of all, he was a shy man with children, and had no knack of dealing with them; he was afraid he bored them, and his unwillingness to do so made him tend to keep out of their way. All of which, in Gerald's case, was surely only temporary. Charles had pinned his faith on some change taking place quite suddenly some day--some liquefaction of his emotions, and of Gerald's, as miraculous as that of the blood of St. Januarius.
    And now, in Paris, as he endured long sultry hours at the Conference, his thoughts often wandered to Switzerland, where Gerald was enjoying a walking tour with some friends of his own age, accompanied by a young schoolmaster who presumably had the knack that Charles lacked. Charles envied that schoolmaster, though he would not have changed places with him for the world.
    Another man whom Charles would not have changed places with was his opposite number on the other side of the Conference table--a fellow named Palan. Palan's own chief was monolithic and taciturn; unlike Sir Malcolm Bingay he left most of the talking to his subordinate. Perhaps the monolith spoke neither French nor English--Charles could not decide. Nor could he decide whether he himself would like to measure himself in debate against this fellow Palan or not; at times he was glad that Sir Malcolm bore the brunt, but at other times he had a curious desire to justify himself in Palan's eyes-- to prove that he, too, though only second-in-command, was just as capable of performing a virtuoso job. Or WAS he just as capable? He kept studying Palan and wondering. Palan had, indeed, begun to fascinate Charles from the opening day of the Conference. He was plump and swarthy, careless of manners, certainly not the kind of person that an old-style diplomat could ever have felt at home with across any kind of table. Nor did Charles, yet he envied the man's animal vitality and impassioned voice that could carry so easily across a room (Charles knew from experience that his own gentler and more pleasing tenor was far less pervasive); he hated Palan's deplorable French accent, yet marvelled at his complete lack of embarrassment in exhibiting it--a lack that almost amounted to a skill. Charles had also watched with mixed emotions Palan's habit of loosening his collar when his neck began to sweat, and the way he proudly observed the contents of his