Topaz - Leon Uris [69]
Conversation on the way to Granville’s apartment was easy between them. He had a grown son and daughter. Life was quite lonely after his wife’s death. He was happy to get out of Egypt and damned mad to be hustled off to the Far East after only a few days. Oh, well, there would be a few months in Paris, later.
She did not talk of the separation with André. She had returned to Paris to get her daughter started at the Sorbonne, and catch up with things in France. Love Washington, she lied.
When André was in one of his pointed moods, he had told her more than once that a Guy de Crécy was the kind of man she should have married in the first place. He would never die from overwork, would always be on the correct side of the political fence, never allow himself to get cornered into making a crucial or unpopular decision, and he thrived on the round of parties and pomp of officialdom and adored all the outward signs of success.
Jacques Granville’s apartment was in the Meurice Hotel. As Deputy Aide to the Presidential Executive, who ran the offices of the President, Jacques Granville had risen from a lowly office during the war to one of the most influential positions in France.
The elegance of his Paris place in the Meurice testified to both his position and personal wealth. Paulette Granville, his fourth and youngest wife, greeted them in the foyer. And Jacques, a charming silver-haired fox, warmed the welcome with a Gallic outburst.
The sitting room was soon filled with gossip, larded with the special wit of diplomats and exquisite champagne. All of those present were men high in the La Croix entourage except Henri Jarré, one of NATO’s top economists.
The conversation quite naturally drifted into an anti-American dissertation.
Henri Jarré, with a great shock of black hair, thick eyebrows, thin bony pale face, pursed his lips like the cynical intellectual he was and was most vocal and venomous. “I say damn the Americans. It’s not the diplomatic blunders or even their total lack of diplomacy. It’s the Americans holding the trigger of the atomic gun. I’ll be damned if I want these upstarts to call a move that can destroy France without France’s consent. Well, we can all be thankful President La Croix is in the Élysée Palace. By God, he gave them a jolt with his demand on the gold payment.”
Guy de Crécy was what one might call a total diplomat, without strong feelings on any subject. Other than Nicole Devereaux, who remained properly silent, the room was without a champion for the maligned Americans.
She drank her champagne, a few glasses too many, and quelled the temptation to throw out one of André’s assorted barbs just to see the stupid expressions that would envelop their faces. Jarré, in particular, needed some cutting up.
How strange it was that in this room she fully shared André’s views. It annoyed her. It annoyed her, too, that she had loathed Washington but could not find happiness in Paris or Montrichard.
Nicole was pleased by Guy de Crécy’s attention. While others around him raged, his gestures and mannerisms were refined and his voice smooth, his words carefully chosen and properly spoken.
Paulette Granville mercifully seated them together during the dinner, and the sympathy between them heightened. He showed he was aware of her with the slightest hint of a smile, a brushing touch, a lingering look.
Nicole wondered as she flushed, Is he playing the subtle art of seduction or am I reading him wrong? Is he merely being polite? What if I am mistaken and rejected? The word “rejected” stayed with her. Am I desirable enough for him? I’m not ... I’m too old....
“More wine?”
“Yes, please.”
No, damn it, she thought. Don’t be like an American woman and drink yourself into a justification! She covered her wine glass, changing her mind.
In the car on the way home, Guy de Crécy took her hand in both of his in