My body was cramped. As I attempted to uncrook my legs, my companion opened her eyes and stared at me in amazed confusion. She yawned and sat up laughing, patting her mouth. “Oh, la, la——. Bonjour, toi!”\
We examined ourselves—I in my crumpled evening-dress, and she in her flimsy gown and decorative high-heeled shoes. I had a glimpse of my face in imagination—pale and donnish; the very last face for such a situation. How ill-assorted! Then I laughed too; the cocher lumbered round on his box and burst into a hoarse guffaw at sight of us. We all laughed together, and the waiter ceased sanding his floor to laugh with us.
We left the racer to his well-earned rest and all three went across to the café. As we soaked bread in our bowls of coffee and plied our spoons, we chatted merrily like good comrades. Then we parted with the cocher, leaving him agreeably surprised, and sauntered down the Quai where workmen in blue blouses, hurrying from across the bridges, found time to nudge one another knowingly and to smile into our eyes with a glad intimacy which was not at all offensive.
In a narrow street where “the mountain” commenced, she halted and placed both her hands on my shoulders, tiptoeing against me.
“One ’as to go ’ome sometime, mon ami.” She was determined to be a sportsman to the end. “But remember, mon petit, if you do not find ’er, zere are ozers.”
I put my hand into my pocket. She examined what I gave her. “Mais, non!” she exclaimed, flushing.
“But yes—for remembrance.”
She tilted up her face and her happy eyes clouded; the tired cheeks turned whiter and the painted lips quivered. “Little one, keess me.”
So I parted from this chance-met waif with her brave and generous heart—— And this was what my madness and Fiesole had taught me. For the time the memory of Vi was entirely banished from my thoughts.