That was our last ex-mural expedition; and the next morning, with a sigh of regret for what we were leaving, and of reluctance in the thought of the further stage it meant for us away from Paradise, and towards the uneasy problem of Paris, we shouldered our pack (figuratively) and took the train north to Orange.
This was, however, an event of its kind, since—ostensibly, at least—it stood for the mid-maze of our enterprise. We were travelling, if you remember, with the main purpose to visit Fifine’s birthplace, and I could not but be, secretly, a little curious to learn how she proposed to herself to deal with a rather nervous question. It was hardly to be assumed but that, as the offspring of one of the richest and most powerful nobles in the land, her advent would have occurred amid environments the most notable the town could boast; whereas—but it is true I knew nothing as to the facts of her origin.
However, she resolved the difficulty quite quietly and naturally, and in the most convincing way possible; though I thought a little flush came to her cheek with the explanation. We got in about eleven o’clock of the morning, and were walking up the long avenue that leads from the station to the town, when I said to her:—
“Well, m’amie; how about the site of Fifine’s nest? In what direction are we to seek it?”
“Indeed,” she answered, “I know no more than you.”
“You do not?”
“I was a baby at the time, you see.”
“But not always a baby?”
“Always, as long as I was here. I remember nothing, absolutely nothing—only the oddest, most shadowy little impression, like a dream, of a great thing like a curtain, and a confusion of pots and pans, and dark people moving about among them.”
I laughed. “It is queer, isn’t it, that survival of first impressions—what decides it. Accident, perhaps; the accident of their alighting on a peculiarly sensitive patch of brain-matter. Hullo!”