Had
any youth been ever so moved by that face before?
There, behind the window (which was now of plate-glass), and among
splendid Napoleonic wares of a later day, were the same old India-rubber
balls in colored net-work; the same quivering lumps of fresh paste in
brown paper, that looked so cool and tempting; the same three-sou boxes
of water-colors (now marked seventy-five centimes), of which I had
consumed so many in the service of Mimsey Seraskier! I went in and
bought one, and resmelt with delight the smell of all my by-gone
dealings there, and received her familiar sounding--
"Merci, monsieur! faudrait-il autre chose?" as if it had been a
blessing; but I was too shy to throw myself into her arms and tell her
that I was the "lone, wandering, but not lost" Gogo Pasquier. She might
have said--
"Eh bien, et apres?"
The day had begun well.
Like an epicure, I deliberated whether I should walk to the old gate in
the Rue de la Pompe, and up the avenue and back to our old garden, or
make my way round to the gap in the park hedge that we had worn of old
by our frequent passage in and out, to and from the Bois de Boulogne.
I chose the latter as, on the whole, the more promising in exquisite
gradations of delight.
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