One absorbing entertainment followed another, but perhaps the picture that remains most clearly in my memory is the dinner on the terrace. A French country-house terrace is so much more frivolous than an English one. The outlook, over a formal garden, of modified formality; the splashing little fountains here and there; the decorated table on the decorated terrace; the shaded candles, flowers, and foreign service; the French moon, that has such a sophisticated paleness; the birds singing French songs in what are doubtless ilex trees—all go to make a peculiar charm that no other country may ever hope to attain.
The days were devoted to motoring to Versailles, Fontainebleau, and through Paris itself, and by this subtle method, one could sight-see without realizing it. To motor over to Chantilly, for the sole purpose of feeding the carp, is a different matter from seeing “sights which should on no account be omitted”; and to go with one’s host for a day’s run among the tiny French villages is a personally conducted tour with the sting entirely extracted.
The week-end over, I must needs pause a day or two in Paris, to rest myself on my journey back to London.
The shops offered wonderful attractions in the way of souvenirs to take to the dear ones at home. For the value of a foreign-bought “souvenir” lies in the fact of its non-existence in American shops, and such are hard to find, indeed. For the novelty in London to-day is the “reduced goods” in the New York department store to-morrow.
Moreover, the shops contained feminine raiment of wonderful glory! Only the fear of my “first impressions” of our American custom-house officers prevented my realizing my wildest dreams of extravagance.
Parisian clothes are marked by that quality which the London sales-people call “dynety”—they having no more idea of the meaning than of the pronounciation of the word.
But the Parisian woman, from the richest to the poorest, is first of all dainty; after that, correct, chic, modish—what you will.
The Parisian woman . . . is first of all dainty.
And the French money is so easy to compute. My sovereign rule is to multiply by two. If the price be in francs multiply by two, shift a decimal point, and you have dollars. If centimes, multiply by two, decimal point again, and you have cents.