Mousmé is neither the serpent nor the eel of another French writer’s experience, but is always fresh, always charming. She is a graduate in the art of pleasing. She knows nothing further of astronomy than to suspect that the stars are really big diamonds, nor of mathematics than what generally enables her to make a good bargain for an obi, dress or hairpin. Hers are entirely applied mathematics, and of the simplest kind. All this ignorance is very stupid, no doubt, to you. I can well imagine the smile of the Girton girl or “superior person” which will reward my confession of Mousmé’s ignorance, but then you are at a disadvantage—in short, you do not know Mousmé as I do. She has lately taken to writing me love-letters whilst I am away down in the town, and when she is tired of trying to read what is printed underneath the pictures in the papers and magazines—queer narrow little strips of letters, folded ever so many times, which she places in her prettiest envelopes, and lays upon my writing-desk; then hides behind a paper screen, or in the next room, to watch me unobserved whilst I read them.
Of course, she could tell me all that they contain, and often does; but Mousmé is quite a child in some things—the blending of childishness with womanhood, which is one of her most delightful traits.
There are such quaint turns of expression in these rice-paper billets-doux, which by turns bring smiles and tears into my eyes, such naïve confessions, such strange lapses into her limited vocabulary of English words.
To-day there is one of those notes on my writing-table, in a shrimp-pink envelope, on which is depicted a dainty little geisha dancing in one corner. There is a rather strong air—I cannot call it a wind, or even breeze—stirring; and Mousmé, fearful lest the treasury of her love should be blown away, has weighed it down with the bronze frog I use for a paper-weight, which she made me buy as an ornament (!) for my table the other day.
I take the little letter up, of course, with the knowledge that Mousmé’s eye is upon me from some near retreat, from which she can steal forth silently to kiss me, English fashion; or startle me with some sudden noise, in imitation of the mice which scamper about in the basement at night, or with a mimicry of the strange han! han! of the vultures which whirl, screaming hoarsely and as if in complaint, over the water of the harbour below.
Mousmé comes out softly from her hiding-place behind the turquoise-blue paper screen in the corner, unaware that two tell-tale glasses, her big one (which she soon made me purchase for her) and my little one, have from their juxtaposition long ago betrayed to me the secret of her whereabouts.
Two soft white arms, bare to the elbows, encircle my neck suddenly from behind; a pretty, piquant face appears over my left shoulder, and—well, after a time, when we stand up and look at each other, there is a peal of gay, spontaneous laughter. And, behold! there is a tell-tale patch of white upon my cheek and coat where her face has rested.
It is several days since we have been anywhere—that is, further afield than a flying visit to my mother-in-law down the hill—and to-night we are going to the fête at the great temple away up the hillside. I have been to such before, but Mousmé is crazy to go with her real husband; and as there is certainly no valid objection to urge against her desire, we are going.
Mousmé puts the little shrimp-coloured love-letter in a box on top of the numerous others she has written me during our three months of married life, and then we sit down to a dinner of the usual perplexing dishes.