Old Suwarrow’s missive fails of its hoped-for effect. Admiral Paul Jones gets out President Washington’s letter and reads it again. Then he sends a polite but peremptory resignation to Catherine, and ends forever with the Russians.
“But, mon Paul,” says Aimee, who looks over his shoulder, “what a compliment! England, France, Russia, America—the whole world calls you! And the answer to all”—here a kiss—“is that you shall stay with your Aimee until she coaxes back your health.”
CHAPTER XXVIII—LOVE AND THOSE LAST DAYS
Aimee is right. Admiral Paul Jones, never his old sound self since that last cruise in the West Indies, is ill. Gourgaud says it is his lungs, and commands him to take care of himself. He obeys by sticking close to the red-gold Aimee, and the pleasant house in the Rue Tournon, with its fireplaces in the winter and its tree-shaded back garden in the summer—summer, when the hammock is swung.
Now a stream of visitors pours in upon him. Even the poor king, in the midst of his troubles, sends to ask after the health of the “Chevalier Jones.” At odd hours, when visitors do not overrun him, he dictates his journals to Benoît-Andre, while Aimee gently swings his hammock with her white hand.
