Nancy had a suggestion here. “Don’t you think Cynthia would adore Mouleon Soule?” And Mrs. Brewster, agreeing, had promised a letter of introduction to an old Basque artist there. “And that will be real local color too. Then there’s Rome and Venice and Florence ...”
Cynthia shook her head. Not much chance of her getting to Italy, not unless the reward for capturing Goncourt, on the ship coming over, should materialize. “Tell me some places near here. Normandy, Brittany.”
“Mont St. Michel!” cried Nancy.
Mrs. Brewster nodded. “I wonder ...” she began.
Nancy took her up. “If we couldn’t go too?”
“Oh that would be wonderful!” cried Cynthia. And so the matter was arranged.
Mont St. Michel was famous for four things; its tides and the island with its mile long causeway to land, its fortress abbey, and omelets. Nature was responsible for the first two, Normandy abbots and the wealth which William of Normandy had filched from England, for the second, and Madame Poulard now dead, but still surviving in her reputation, for the third.
It was to partake of the third that Cynthia was seated, on the evening of her first day at Mont St. Michel, before a red checked cloth covered table in the Hotel Tete D’or. It was a distracting scent. The great arched room with ceiling darkened by the smoke of many fires, the enormous fireplace under the great cowled chimney, and the fascinating process of mixing that omelet which Madame Poulard had made famous among gourmets all the world over. And for a further distraction there was the couple at the corner table; the man so dark and slim and ... well, interesting looking, the girl so pretty, and so angry. Cynthia’s attention was doubly held, by the girl’s prettiness and by her anger.
Nancy’s tug at her sleeve pulled Cynthia’s attention back to the omelet making. This was a ceremony, a rite in itself that people came from all over the world to see. A huge bowl of sweet butter, eggs, and the long handled iron skillet held in Madam’s skillful hand. From the butter she sliced a great golden gob, dumped it into the pan and held it over the small fire in the big fireplace.
“I knew the original Madam Poulard,” Mrs. Brewster was saying. “She and her husband were the handsomest couple in Normandy, or so it was said. Look ... the eggs go in now.”