Meanwhile they had reached the patch of sun-shaded, table-crowded pavement they were to patronize, had sat down, and ordered pernods. This was the moment for business. Ella was at a disadvantage. She knew that if she returned to Patricia Brent with the rights of this serial Comment j’ai fui un Grand Amour, that irrepressibly provincial matron would be delighted. For her, the word French guaranteed a brand of excellence: discreetly but authentically amorous, high-toned, cultivated. For her, the phrase: by arrangement with the Paris Femme et Foyer would exude precisely the same exclusive spiciness as an expensive French scent. Yet Ella knew that no sooner had Patricia actually read it (in translation — she did not read French) she would agree, though reluctantly, that the story wouldn’t do at all. Ella could see herself, if she chose, as protecting Patricia against her own weakness. But the fact was Ella had no intention of buying the story, had never had any intention of buying it; and therefore she was wasting this incredibly well-fed, well-washed and correct young man’s time. She ought to feel guilty about it; she did not. If she had liked him, she would have been contrite: as it was, she saw him as a species of highly-trained middle-class animal, and was prepared to make use of him: she was unable, so weakened was she as an independent being, to enjoy sitting at a table publicly without a man’s protection, and this man would do as well as another. For form’s sake, she began explaining to Monsieur Brun how the story would have to be adapted for England. It concerned a young and poor orphan, sorrowing for a beautiful mother who had been brought to an early death-bed by a callous husband. This orphan had been reared in a convent by some good sisters. In spite of her piety, she was seduced at the age of fifteen by the heartless gardener, and, unable to face the innocent nuns, she had run away to Paris where she clung, culpable but utterly innocent at heart, to one man after another, all of whom betrayed her. Finally, at the age of twenty, with an illegitimate child put in the care of yet another set of good sisters, she met the assistant of a baker of whose love she felt herself unworthy. She fled from this, the true love, into several more pairs of uncaring arms, sobbing almost uninterruptedly. But at last the assistant of the baker (but only after a sufficient number of words had been used) caught up with her, forgave her, and promised her undying love, passion and protection. ‘Mon amour,’ this epic ended, ‘Mon amour, I did not know when I ran away from you that I was flying from true love.’

‘You see,’ said Ella, ‘this is so French in flavour that we would have to have it re-written.’

‘But, yes? How is that?’ The round, prominent, dark brown eyes were resentful. Ella stopped herself on the brink of indiscretion — she had been going to complain of the tone of mingled eroticism and religiosity — thinking that Patricia Brent would stiffen in precisely the same way if someone, perhaps Robert Brun, had said: ‘This is so English in flavour.’