“I shall like Mr. Grandison,” she said as she followed the doorkeeper upstairs, and the excitement of looking at her room was mingled with the excitement of imagining that in a few days she would be laughing with the handsome man who had met her, and that he would lose his surliness and his shyness as they walked through Paris side by side. By the time she had finished unpacking she felt tired, and she lay down on the bed to rest. She could not sleep, and an hour later, when she looked out of the window and saw that the sunlight, which had greeted her on her arrival, had given place to driving rain. She had no umbrella, nor mackintosh, so she could not go out, and she felt shy and uncomfortable as she walked through the passages of the hotel. When she tried to speak to the chambermaid she found that she had forgotten her few words of French, but at last the day passed by and she was called from her room to find Mr. Grandison waiting for her in the hall.
“Richard sent me: he will meet us in the restaurant,” he said. They got into a cab, for it was still raining, and drove in silence until Anne, looking out of the window, asked what street they were in. “I don’t know,” answered the young man. “There are so many streets in Paris. But it is quite easy to find one’s way about.”
Anne would have liked to ask him about his sister, but she lacked the courage and nothing more was said. The restaurant to which they had driven was like a hundred others which they had passed on the way, and appeared indistinguishable from the restaurants on either side of it; each with basket-work chairs heaped upside down on the little iron tables outside, with an awning flapping in the wind, and “Brasserie” written in gigantic letters along the front. It was still raining, but when they had passed through the doors they found the room was crowded.
Richard was waiting for them at a corner table, and they sat down. Soon food was brought them, and Richard began to speak about the restaurant, but Anne hardly took in his words and forgot to help herself from the little dishes, for she was charmed by the scene before her: the small tables, each with its merry party, men laughing hastily before filling their mouths with soup, swallowing it, and then laughing again as they tore the long rolls of bread to pieces with their fingers.
But Richard was pressing Anne to help herself, handing her the little dishes and filling her glass with yellow wine, then turning and speaking to Grandison about some play of Ibsen’s which was being acted at a theatre in Paris. Anne’s pleasure was increased by knowing that Richard and his friend were talking of a play which she had read, and that she could share in the discussion if she chose, but her attention wandered once more, and she was the first to notice a girl who came towards them threading her way between the tables, followed by a fat man with a square red beard, who stopped to speak to some acquaintances who hailed him as he passed. But the girl came on and held out a cool brown hand for Anne to shake.
“Mademoiselle Lariboisière—always called Ginette,” said Richard. Ginette was beautiful, very beautiful, and Anne wondered how the mistake had arisen which had made her expect Ginette to be Mr. Grandison’s sister. Instead of that she was a Frenchwoman with a lean brown face like a mask and dark hazel eyes with black lashes.
“If I were only like Ginette,” she thought, a wish that recurred for many days afterwards whenever she was in her company, never guessing that the French girl was saying to herself: “If I were only like this English girl of Richard’s!”
Ginette sat down opposite them without appearing surprised that Richard and Gerald should go on talking in English and pay no attention to her, interrupting each other, laughing at one moment and becoming almost angry in the next. But though they were talking in English, Anne did not listen either; she gazed across the table at Ginette, wishing that she could speak to her and get to know her. At last the meal was over, the dishes were cleared away and soon they were joined by the fat man, in spite of all appearances an American.
Anne found that he was kissing her hand, and a drop of soup from his beard was smeared over her fingers. Her face showed her disgust as she jumped up from her seat, and without speaking to the American, who had drawn a chair near her, she went over to Ginette. But Ginette did not understand English, and after one or two halting sentences Anne fell into silence.
The group round the table was joined by several people, and each newcomer shook hands all round the table before sitting down. Anne had never shaken hands so often in her life, but there was no more hand-kissing and there were no more beards. A Chinaman seated himself beside Ginette, and they spoke so slowly that Anne was able to follow their conversation; and she was astonished that she had heard everything they said on the lips of English curates at tea parties in English parsonages. After a little while Grandison came and sat beside her and poured her out a glass of something warm, perfumed and sticky; it seemed the most delicious liquid that she had ever tasted. Conversation flowed on all sides of her, but she sat quiet, saying nothing and looking at the pink face and the fair hair of Richard’s friend and then at the Chinaman, who was talking so quietly and so tediously about the fatigues of railway journeys to Ginette, both of them indifferent to the shouting, excited group clustered round Richard and the red-bearded American. Anne did not gather what the subject of their argument was and she felt no desire to do anything. An hour passed and then another hour, and once Grandison called to the waiter, who refilled her little glass with the liqueur. It was enough for her to know that she was in Paris, and that this was her welcome. The voices, the faces, the Chinaman and Ginette melted into a dream full of colour and of movement and shot through with music; her head nodded and when Grandison touched her on the shoulder she smiled at him and realized that she was very tired.