He aroused my curiosity. I wanted to investigate, so I began looking vague, letting my eyes wander, and answering at random. Presently the earnest talker holding forth to me grew indignant at my lack of attention, broke off abruptly, and went away. I turned to the man with the different voice and asked, "What in the world makes you come to France for hats, just now in the midst of the war?"
He answered with instant decision, "Because the only hats worth buying are made in Paris."
"Now? with France bleeding to death, how can they make hats, invent new fashions!"
His eye kindled. "Madame, a good French modiste on her deathbed could make a better hat than any one in New York ever could."
I pondered this. His accent was indubitably American, not to say New York. But there are cases of French people who have spent part of their childhood in the States who speak perfectly. "You must be at least partly of French extraction to be able so to understand and admire France," I ventured.
He opposed a rather startled and very emphatic negative. "Me? Not much! I'm as American as they make 'em. Born on lower Broadway and brought up in the New York public schools. I don't know anything about France, except that we have to come here to get the right styles in hats. I don't even speak any French except to say 'combien' and enough to count."
I was put off the scent entirely. "Oh, I thought from the way you spoke that you knew France well. This is your first visit, then?"
He was silent a moment, making a mental calculation.
Then he said: "This is my fifty-first visit to Paris. I have come twice a year for a little more than twenty-five years."
"Always for hats?" I queried, my imagination reeling at this vista.