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few days there would be an excited young Frenchman round at my apartment wanting to do the blood-letting trick for me. Or perhaps Delaisse would be a blasé intellectual who’d want to talk the whole thing out on the existentialist plane.
    While I waited for her I thought this was the first time I’d taken a girl out for nearly three years. The last one had been Rachel on that London leave. (Rachel married now and with a son.) One or two of Claire Winterton’s younger guests had made on-coming remarks, but I’d had a complex about the whole business. In this new mood it seemed objectless to have been so stuffy. Perhaps this was one way of getting back on life.
    I stood and waited on the corner of the Place Masséna and listened to the rickety old trams thumping past. Under the portico a woman was shouting in a monotonous metallic voice: “ Samedi Soir. Paris-Presse. Samedi Soir. Paris-Presse.” She might have been calling the faithful to prayer. There had been only a light breeze to-day, and this had dropped with evening. A bite in the air now the sun was gone.
    I heard her come up before she spoke, in fact I knew she stood a few moments looking at me, but I didn’t let on.
    â€œGood evening, M. Gordon.”
    â€œMme. Delaisse.”
    We shook hands formally in the French way and then we got a taxi and drove to a place I knew on the front.
    â€œThis is very expensive,” she said as we went in. “Can’t we go somewhere cheaper?”
    â€œOne of the drawbacks about going out with a man like me is that there’s nothing much to do in an evening except talk and eat This is a good place to do both.”
    â€œThere are cheaper places to do both. Less smart. I—shall feel a little out of my depth.”
    â€œI don’t think I quite believe that.”
    She looked up quickly in surprise.
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œOh … just that”
    â€œJust what?”
    â€œI can’t put it more plainly because I don’t know myself. I’ve an instinct that you won’t really feel—out of your depth. Or should have no need to.”
    She didn’t say any more until we were seated. When we came to order the wine I left it to her and after hesitation she chose a good vintage.
    I said gently: “ My guess is that you come of a good family and that the war has made all the difference. Right?”
    She said: “What is a good family? My father was good. My grandfather was good. Is that what you mean?”
    â€œAll right,” I agreed. “What are your views on the fall of the Government?”
    â€œNo. Talk about yourself. Where were you wounded? I want to know that. Was it in France?”
    â€œD’you think it tactful to bring up the subject?”
    â€œI think it would be too tactful if I avoided it.”
    I said in surprise: “ Maybe you’re right.… Though I don’t want to go on about it.”
    All the same I found myself telling her about Normandy and the tank battles round Caen and how the shell had burst much nearer two other men who had only got scratched up a bit … I went on about the rest, and didn’t realise till afterwards that it was practically the first time I’d told anyone the whole thing.
    We put in most of the evening there, I sat near enough to make out the light in her eyes sometimes and the glimmer of her teeth. She’d a pleasant laugh, self-deprecating and a little husky. She was wearing a tight velvet bodice of some sort with a white brooch at her throat. I think she was more frank and open and more quickly companionable with me because I had this drawback. I wasn’t, as other men: ordinary standards didn’t apply.
    She’d a queer way of looking at things. She wouldn’t talk about her own experiences, but it was plain enough they had been bitter some way or another. Underneath her liveliness, her self-chiding humour, her youth, was a layer of