Gerald then tipped the porter a hundred-franc note and Charles told the driver to take them to the Crillon.

As the taxi left the station Charles said: 'How times have changed-- I can remember when a hundred francs was really money! But the city hasn't lost its fascination. Did you see much of it on your way out?'

'Not a thing. The train just shunted into some station in the middle of the night. I was half asleep.'

'Ah yes, the Ceinture.' Charles could not repress an emotion of astonishment--that anyone who had never seen Paris before could allow himself to be taken in and out without even leaving the train for a quick look. 'You were here once when you were a baby--just passing through. But this can be called your first real visit.'

'Yes. I know I ought to get a thrill.' The boy was peering through the window. 'I must say everything looks a bit run down after Switzerland.'

'Everything is. France, remember, has been through two world wars.'

'And the Swiss have been sitting pretty, I know. But the mountains-- the clean air--I think that's really more in my line than big cities.'

'You went to the right country, then. You look very fit. And still growing--or is it my imagination?'

Gerald was a little shy of his height, which was already six foot one. He laughed. 'Oh, I hope not, or I'll be a freak. I think I've stopped, though.'

'I sometimes wish I had an inch or two more myself. Not that five feet nine is really short. But you can look over my head.'

'It's useful in climbing,' Gerald admitted.

'Did you do much of that?'

'Just Pilatus and the Faulhorn and some of the easier ones.'

Charles was suddenly aware of an emotion which, in a younger man and in connection with a woman, he would have diagnosed as jealousy. 'So you got along all right with that schoolmaster--I forget his name?'

'Tubby Conklin? Oh, he isn't so bad when you get to know him. Not really stuffy--just a bit of a watchdog. I suppose he felt he had to be, with all of us on his hands.'

STUFFY. Charles caught the word as if it had been a hit below the belt, but immediately decided that Gerald was unlikely to have heard of the nickname--and if he had, as he must sooner or later, what did it matter? Perhaps that was one of the confessions that would develop so naturally towards midnight at the Cheval Noir. He imagined an opening. 'D'you know what they call me at the Office, Gerald? STUFFY Anderson.' (Pause for merriment.) 'I suppose having any sort of nickname's a good sign--after all, they called Disraeli Dizzy, but you can't imagine Gladstone ever being called Gladdy. . . . Gladwyn Jebb, perhaps, but not Gladstone. . . .