This magnificent Monsieur Americain engages the "suite of the
Empress Eugenie," as it grandly advertises itself, for his own use and
that of his chauffeur, merely to bathe in, and rest in, though they are
not to stay the night. And the dinner ordered will enable Madame to show
what she can do, a chance she rarely gets from cheeseparing customers,
like Brian and me, and others of our ilk.
I am determined not to betray my childish eagerness by being first at
the rendezvous. I keep to my hot room, until I spy a tall young figure
of a man in evening dress striding toward the arbour. To see this sight,
I have to be at my window; but I hide behind a white curtain and a
screen of wistaria and roses. I count sixty before I go down. I walk
slowly. I stop and examine flowers in the garden. I could catch a
wonderful gold butterfly, but perhaps it is as happy as I am. I wouldn't
take its life for anything on earth! As I watch it flutter away, my host
comes out of the arbour to meet me.
We pass two exquisite hours in each other's company. I recall each
subject on which we touch and even the words we speak, as if all were
written in a journal. The air is so clear and still that we can hear the
famous chimes of the cathedral clock, far away, in the town that is a
bank of blue haze on the horizon. At half-past nine I begin to tell my
host that he must go, but he does not obey till after ten. Then at last
he takes my hand for good-bye--no, _au revoir_: he will not say
good-bye! "In two weeks," he repeats, "we shall meet again.
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