Paris: The Novel

wasn’t worried personally. Marie was silent.
    “You know,” Hadley added quietly, “I can stop it. I could put my son on a boat to America tomorrow if it’s necessary.”
    “You realize, don’t you, that if they marry, your son will probably take my only child three thousand miles away across the ocean, where I shall never see her, or my grandchildren. Quite apart from the fact that I need her at the store.”
    “Then perhaps I should act,” said Hadley.
    Marie shrugged.
    “Let her decide for herself,” she said miserably.

    The next few days were not easy for Marie. It was as though a spell had been cast over the last three months. The shock of the first encounter with Frank Hadley Jr., then the excitement of his father’s arrival, had blinded her to the cold, grim reality that if her daughter fell in love with young Frank, he would take her away forever and she would be alone for the rest of her life. And when she thought of that, she cursed the young man’s coming.
    She asked Claire what she thought of young Frank the next evening, when Claire was reading a magazine, and Claire looked up and said he was nice enough, which was clearly an evasion.
    “Well, don’t go falling in love with him, unless you want to find yourself cut off from everything you love, in America—which all the Americans seem to be trying to get away from,” she said, as though she were joking, but they both knew she wasn’t.
    “I’d like to see New York,” said Claire, casually, turning back to her magazine. And Marie wanted to continue the conversation, but realized that it was no good, and silently cursed the fact that the little scene in the garden at Fontainebleau had left her, forever, in a false position with her daughter.
    She wished there was someone to comfort her, but Marc was no real support, and she didn’t want to share her thoughts with de Cygne. And Hadley didn’t call.

    It was three days after the meeting that she went to Hadley’s apartment. She really hadn’t meant to. She hadn’t planned it at all.
    She’d had a lunchtime meeting with a designer who had a little studio on the rue de Chazelles, just above the Parc Monceau. As she came out, she saw that despite the fact that it was November, it was a bright afternoon with a wintry sun in the sky, so she decided to walk through the park, as she had done so many times as a child, and continue down to the boulevard Haussmann and across to her office.
    And having decided that, it was only a very small detour to ring the bell of Hadley’s apartment, in case he’d like to walk with her in the park.
    He was in. He came straight down.
    The park was such an elegant little place, with curling walks, and statues discreetly placed upon lawns or under trees. In the morning, nannies wheeled prams there, and rich little children played, but it was nearly deserted now. There were still golden leaves on many of the trees.
    “I’m glad you came,” he said. “I almost called you. I realized afterward what a terrible thing it must be for you that my son might take your daughter away, and I wasn’t sure what to do.”
    “I shall feel very lonely. But … It’s her life, not mine.”
    He offered his arm. She took it. They walked a little way.
    “Our families have seen a few things together,” he said.
    “Have we?”
    “I was thinking of the time, all those years ago, when Marc got in trouble with that girl about the baby …”
    “The baby was adopted in England by a very good family, so she’s all right,” Marie remarked. “She’s probably a happily married Englishwoman by now.” She smiled. “That’s one bit of the past that can be left to rest in peace. I never even knew her name.” She sighed. “It’s amazing what we don’t know.” She walked on with him in silence for a little way. “Talking of the past, did you know I was in love with you in those days?”
    He hesitated.
    “I thought that, maybe a little.”
    “It was more than that.”
    “Oh.”
    “Do you mind?” She looked up at him.
    “No. I’m very flattered.” He paused. “You probably didn’t know that Gérard warned me off.”
    “He what?”
    “Well, you know, wrong religion, America not where the family wanted their only daughter, and all the rest. He was perfectly nice about it. I neverliked him much, but he didn’t accuse me of seducing you or anything. Well, not quite. He found us in the grotto in the Buttes-Chaumont, if you remember.”
    “Gérard.” She