Topaz - Leon Uris [18]
Without benefit of a final mirror check, André placed on the big horn-rimmed reading glasses he used when his eyes were tired, and began going through the New York and Washington newspapers.
In about an hour, his women were ready and presented themselves at his door simultaneously.
“You are glorious. Both of you. How can I be so lucky?”
He kissed his wife’s cheek, and he meant it. The front doorbell rang. That would be the idiot, Tucker Brown IV, in his punctual American way.
André placed his arm through theirs, and they made off to the Legion of Honor dinner to preserve and defend the glory of France.
12
IT IS ARGUED THAT the great mansion housing the Embassy of France on Kalorama Road is even more splendid than the White House. This would be a difficult point to debate on this night of the occasion of the Legion of Honor dinner.
A two-block-long trail of limousines was passed through the police cordons on to the semicircular driveway to deposit the most elegant cargo of the season before the massive iron grille doors.
The most delicate of battles was to ensue in that war called protocol. Sides chosen, five hundred combatants. Two hundred Americans of the highest diplomatic, cultural, military, and political rank to be found in Washington versus two hundred of the cream of the French colonies of New York and Washington. A hundred more top-rank strays of other nations were there, along with the usual clever contingent of crashers whose sole diet consisted of what they could scrounge up at the nightly cocktail parties in Washington.
France, indeed, was at subtle war this night to preserve, defend, and perpetuate the legends of French superiority, its army a few million Parisians, its banners a bit tattered and faded. What was missing in numbers was offset by the zeal and arrogance of the Parisians.
André and Nicole swept into the grand foyer. At the far end of the great room, Ambassador and Madame René d’Arcy anchored the receiving line near a massive Louis XV chest. A string of aides hovered about smartly, plucking the very important from the receiving line and moving them effortlessly and directly to the Ambassador and his wife.
Claire d’Arcy was fluid and French and beamed beneath high smartness. D’Arcy, a small, rotund, and lively person, greeted each guest with the fervor of finding a long-lost brother. They had created a meaningful protocol, far from many of the burdensome, stiff receptions of Washington. Yes, the French could show them a few things about protocol.
Michele and Tucker Brown IV made for the relative quiet of the canopied balcony overlooking the sweeping lawns behind the embassy.
Here, they fell into the first of the subdivisions of bores and snobs. This was the lowest group of the snob order. They were the pseudo sophisticates—the French food and wine snobs (Americans, for the most part).
The duel opened with the ground rules that only French wine could be considered. It was all merely a case of which French wine was superior to which French wine.
But Tucker Brown IV owned appalling bad taste. Unfortunately, he shot the same blanks he generally did in the State Department. Looking and acting much like an eager, uncoordinated Newfoundland puppy who tripped over its own outsized paws, Tucker made a feeble case on behalf of German wine. Then he compounded the blunder by the mention of a California wine! Noses sniffed contemptuously. Michele giggled. An unbearable silence was broken by another of the lowly order, a food snob.
Tucker Brown IV then proceeded to put his other foot in his mouth. “There’s some really great French restaurants in New York, and for my dough, the Rive Gauche right here in Washington is tops.”
“But, Tucker, it’s more than French. It’s run by a Corsican!”
Laughter.
Misfortune continued to plague Tucker Brown IV, who a little later found himself standing