He had brought with him only his dressing-bag, so they were not detained
at the Customs. His valet was following with the rest of his luggage,
and as soon as she had had a few hours' sleep, he would take her to
different shops. She clung on to his arm. Paris seemed very cold and
cheerless, and she did not like the tall, haggard houses, nor the
slattern waiter arranging chairs in front of an early café, nor the
humble servant clattering down the pavement in wooden shoes. She saw
these things with tired eyes, and she was dimly aware of a decrepit
carriage drawn by two decrepit horses, and then of a great hotel built
about a courtyard. She heard Owen arguing about rooms, but it seemed to
her that a room where there was a bed was all that she desired.
But the blank hotel bedroom, so formal and cheerless, frightened her,
and it seemed to her that she could not undress and climb into that high
bed, and she had no clothes--not even a nightgown. The chambermaid
brought her a cup of chocolate, and when she had drunk it she fell
asleep, seeing the wood fire burning, and thinking how tired she was.
It was the chambermaid knocking. It was time for her to get up, and Owen
had sent her a brush and comb. She could only wash her face with the
corner of a damp towel. Her stockings were full of dust; her chemise was
like a rag--all, she reflected, the discomforts of an elopement. As she
brushed out her hair with Owen's brush, she wondered what he could see
to like in her. She admired his discretion in not coming to her room.
But really, this hotel seemed as unlikely a place for love-making as the
gloomy plain of Picardy.
She was pinning on her hat when he knocked. He told her that he had been
promised some nice rooms on the second floor later in the day, and they
went to breakfast at Voisin's. The rest of the day was spent getting in
and out of cabs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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