Six months before I encountered her in Paris, she had fallen sick from overwork, and had come to relatives in Southern Prance to regain her strength. Recovered now, she was spending the last month of her vacation sight-seeing in Paris. She asked me where I was stopping, which reminded me that I had not yet secured a place to sleep. I blamed it on her for having taken me off to the cathedral when I should have been looking up a hotel.
"Why waste money on a hotel?" she asked. "If you're going to be here several weeks a pension is lots cheaper."
She told me of the place where she was staying over on the Left Bank. There were vacant rooms. I dashed away to cancel my sailing, to collect my baggage and, before I had time to realize my good fortune, I was installed under the same roof with her. My memory of the next few days is a jumble of Suzanne in the Musée Carnavelet, Suzanne in the Luxembourg, Suzanne in the Place de la Concorde, pointing out where they had guillotined the king, Suzanne under the dome of Les Invalides, denouncing Napoleon and all his ways.
Coming back from Versailles one evening, I asked her if she ever thought of living permanently in France.
"No," she said emphatically. "I love France, but I don't like the French. The men don't know how to treat a woman seriously. They always talk love."
"I envy them the sang froid with which they express their feelings."
Suzanne's eyes shot fire. Displaying all her storm signals, she flared out into a denunciation of such flippancy. This business of telling a woman at first sight that she made your head swim, disgusted her. This continual harping on sex, seemed nasty. "Why can't men and women have decent, straightforward friendships?" she demanded. She liked men, liked their point of view, liked their talk and comradeship. But Frenchmen could not think seriously if a woman was in sight. Friendship was impossible with them.
"It's pretty uncertain with any men, isn't it?" I asked.
"Well. Anyhow American men are better. I've had some delightful men friends at home."
"And did the friendships last?" I insisted.