Seven
When I got home there was a telegram waiting for me—it had been sentfrom Antibes.
Meet me tomorrow four-thirty usual place.
Ellie was different. I saw it at once. We met as always in Regent’s Parkand at first we were a bit strange and awkward¹ with each other. I hadsomething I was going to say to her and I was in a bit of a state as to howto put it. I suppose any man is when he comes to the point of proposingmarriage.
And she was strange about something too. Perhaps she was consideringthe nicest and kindest way of saying No to me. But somehow I didn’t thinkthat. My whole belief in life was based on the fact that Ellie loved me. Butthere was a new independence about her, a new confidence in herselfwhich I could hardly feel was simply because she was a year older. Onemore birthday can’t make that difference to a girl. She and her family hadbeen in the South of France and she told me a little about it. And thenrather awkwardly² she said:
“I—I saw that house there, the one you told me about. The one that ar-chitect friend of yours had built.”
“What—Santonix?”
“Yes. We went there to lunch one day.”
“How did you do that? Does your stepmother know the man who livesthere?”
“Dmitri Constantine? Well—not exactly but she met him and—well—Greta fixed³ it up for us to go there as a matter of fact.”
“Greta again,” I said, allowing the usual exasperation⁴ to come into myvoice.
“I told you,” she said, “Greta is very good at arranging things.”
“Oh all right. So she arranged that you and your stepmother—”
“And Uncle Frank,” said Ellie.
“Quite a family party,” I said, “and Greta too, I suppose.”
“Well, no, Greta didn’t come because, well—” Ellie hesitated, “—Cora,my stepmother, doesn’t treat Greta exactly like that.”
“She’s not one of the family, she’s a poor relation, is she?” I said. “Justthe au pair girl, in fact. Greta must resent⁵ being treated that way some-times.”
“She’s not an au pair girl, she’s a kind of companion to me.”

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