Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan

who had rather a weakness for my father, seemed disconcerted.
    After a pause, Webb shouted: "Congratulations! What a splendid idea! My dear lady, you don't know what you're taking on, you are wonderful! Here waiter! We must celebrate."
    Anne smile quietly and indifferently. Then I saw Webb's face light up, and I did not turn round:
    "Elsa! Good Heavens, it's Elsa Mackenbourg! She hasn't seen me yet. I say Raymond, do you see how lovely that girl has grown?"
    "Hasn't she!" said my father in a proprietary voice, but then he remembered and his face fell.
    Anne could hardly help noticing the inflection in his voice. She turned to me with a quick movement, but before she could speak I leant towards her and said in a confidential whisper, loud enough for my father to hear:
    "Anne, you're causing quite a sensation. There's a man over there who can't take his eyes off you."
    My father twisted round to look at the man in question:
    "I won't have that sort of thing!" he said, taking Anne's hand.
    "Aren't they sweet?" exclaimed Madame Webb, ironically. "Charles, we really shouldn't have disturbed them; it would have been better to have invited Cécile by herself."
    "She wouldn't have come," I said unhesitatingly.
    "Why not? Are you in love with one of the fishermen?"
    She had once seen me in conversation with a bus conductor, and ever since had treated me as though I had lost caste.
    "Why yes, of course!" I said with an effort to appear gay.
    "And do you go out fishing a lot?"
    She thought she was being funny, which made it even worse. I was beginning to get angry, but did not know what to answer without being too offensive. There was dead silence. Anne's voice interposed quietly:
    "Raymond, would you mind asking the waiter to bring me a straw to drink my orange juice?"
    Charles Webb began to talk feverishly about refreshing drinks. Anne gave me a look of entreaty. We all decided to dine together as though we had narrowly escaped a scene.
    At dinner I drank far too much. I wanted to forget Anne's anxious expression when she looked at my father, and the hint of gratitude in her eyes whenever they rested on me . Every time Madame Webb made a dig at me I gave her an ingratiating smile. This seemed to upset her, and she soon became openly aggressive. Anne signed to me to keep quiet, she had a horror of scenes in public, and Madame Webb seemed to be on the point of creating one. For my part I was used to them. Among our associates they were frequent, so I was not disturbed by the prospect.
    After dinner we went to another bar. Soon Elsa and Cyril turned up. Elsa was talking very loudly as she entered the room followed by poor Cyril. I thought she was behaving badly, but she was pretty enough to carry it off.
    "Who's that puppy she's with?" asked Charles Webb. "He's rather young, isn't he?"
    "It's love that keeps him young!" simpered his wife.
    "Don't you believe it!" said my father. "It's just an infatuation."
    I had my eyes on Anne. She was watching Elsa in the calm, detached way she looked at very young women, or at the mannequins parading her collection. For a moment I admired her passionately for showing no trace of jealousy or spite, but how could she be jealous, I wondered, when she herself was a hundred times more beautiful and intelligent than Elsa? As I was very drunk, I told her so. She looked at me curiously:
    "Do you really think I am more beautiful than Elsa?"
    "Of course!"
    "That is always pleasant to hear, but you are drinking too much. Give me your glass. I hope it doesn't upset you to see Cyril here? Anyway he seems bored to death."
    "He's my lover," I said with gay abandon.
    "You are quite drunk. Fortunately it's time to go home."
    It was a relief to part from the Webbs. I found it difficult to say goodbye politely. My father drove, and my head lolled onto Anne's shoulder.
    I began to reflect how much I preferred her to the people we usually saw, that she was infinitely superior to them in every way. My father said very