"I believe there are," said Grafton. "Yes, we'll go somewhere."
"I say, you know, this isn't half bad," said Young George as they sped across the Tuileries gardens, with the great purple mass of the Louvre on one side of them and the gay flower beds on the other, with the long vista up to the Arc de Triomphe. "I like it better than Hyde Park." Which was a great concession for so sturdy an Englishman.
"There's a concert every afternoon in a sort of open-air theatre," said Barbara. "We go there sometimes. Perhaps I shouldn't mind Paris so much if I weren't in a family. But how joyful it will be to get back to England again! I'm longing for bacon for breakfast. I think French food is much overrated."
They dined early, at the 'Ambassadeurs,' and Barbara said that the food was better than she was accustomed to. They were a merry, talkative quartette, and people looked at them admiringly and talked about them. Those young English girls, with their fair hair and their delicious colouring—when they began to be beautiful they almost exaggerated it. There were not a few who would have liked to make the entente cordiale that evening with this English group.
They went to the Opéra Comique and heard 'Louise,' that poignant story in which a daughter's love brings a father's sorrow. They were all fond of music and knew something about it, even Young George, who had asked for an opera rather than a play. He and Barbara chatted gaily between the acts, but Caroline, whose sensitive fibre responded to the emotion of those she loved, divined that her father was moved by the music, and the unfolding of the story. Before the last act, in which Louise finally forsakes the father who has loved her and whom she has loved, dying in his room, Grafton said: "I think I've had enough. I'll stay outside and smoke; and wait for you."
He and Caroline had read what was coming, sitting in a corner of the foyer. "Let's all go home," she said. "I expect Barbara and Bunting would just as soon. They have lots to talk about."
Barbara and Bunting made no objection, and as it was still early they went to supper at Henry's round the corner. Barbara said that evidently Madame la Comtesse didn't know what cooking was.
When Caroline and Barbara were alone that night, Barbara said: "That was rather a beastly play for Dad to see. I suppose that's why we came away before the end. I hope B isn't behaving towards him as she did last time."
Caroline was surprised. She had not credited Barbara with that amount of intuition. "No, he's happy about B," she said. "And he likes Dick immensely."
"I said it would be B when we first set eyes on Dick, you know," Barbara said.