I did not need to ask whom. ‘So he’s given you the slip, too?’

‘We got here last night and were going on to Zürich today. I left him at the Lotti after dinner, as he said he was tired, and went round to the Travellers’ for a game.’

I noticed how, even with me, he was making excuses, as though rehearsing his story for retelling elsewhere. ‘As he said he was tired’ was good. I could not well imagine Rex letting a half-tipsy boy interfere with his cards.

‘So you came back and found him gone?’

‘Not at all. I wish I had. I found him sitting up for me. I had a run of luck at the Travellers’ and cleaned up a packet. Sebastian pinched the lot while I was asleep. All he left me was two first-class tickets to Zürich stuck in the edge of the looking-glass. I had nearly three hundred quid, blast him!’

‘And now he may be almost anywhere.’

‘Anywhere. You’re not hiding him by any chance?’

‘No. My dealings with that family are over.’

‘I think mine are just beginning,’ said Rex. ‘I say, I’ve got a lot to talk about, and I promised a chap at the Travellers’ I’d give him his revenge this afternoon. Won’t you dine with me?’

‘Yes. Where?’

‘I usually go to Ciro’s.’

‘Why not Paillard’s?’

‘Never heard of it. I’m paying you know.’

‘I know you are. Let me order dinner.’

‘Well, all right. What’s the place again?’ I wrote it down for him. ‘Is it the sort of place you see native life?’

‘Yes, you might call it that.’

‘Well, it’ll be an experience. Order something good.’

‘That’s my intention.’

I was there twenty minutes before Rex. If I had to spend an evening with him, it should, at any rate, be in my own way. I remember the dinner well – soup of oseille, a sole quite simply cooked in a white-wine sauce, a caneton à la presse, a lemon soufflé. At the last minute, fearing that the whole thing was too simple for Rex, I added caviar aux blinis. And for wine I let him give me a bottle of 1906 Montrachet, then at its prime, and, with the duck, a Clos de Bèze of 1904.

Living was easy in France then; with the exchange as it was, my allowance went a long way and I did not live frugally. It was very seldom, however, that I had a dinner like this, and I felt well disposed to Rex, when at last he arrived and gave up his hat and coat with the air of not expecting to see them again. He looked round the sombre little place with suspicion as though hoping to see apaches or a drinking party of students. All he saw was four senators with napkins tucked under their beards eating in absolute silence. I could imagine him telling his commercial friends later: ‘…interesting fellow I know; an art student living in Paris. Took me to a funny little restaurant – sort of place you’d pass without looking at – where there was some of the best food I ever ate. There were half a dozen senators there, too, which shows you it was the right place. Wasn’t at all cheap either.’