Finally to Maison Ford just outside of Paris. We left the car, walked back to the gates of Paris, and started to go home in the Metro. We happened to notice that it was twenty minutes of eight and home three quarters of an hour away.
So we went to Premier’s, one of my favorite places. Marje gave me the dinner of my life: lobster and real ice cream. I began talking about all my different birthdays, especially the one at college when I took my last exam and my ring came. I shall never forget that afternoon. Maidie and I had dinner at Rahar’s, where we were forbidden to go without a chaperon, and she bet me the dinner that I wouldn’t dare go up to the head of the philosophy department, whom we didn’t know at all, but who was there, and ask him to chaperon us. Of course I did, and of course he was lovely, and came and sat with us a few minutes and said he hoped we’d take his courses some day when we grew up—and I a senior!
Then I told Marje about Bailey’s and Stetson’s and the ocean and everything. Gee! but we had a great time—I’ve almost stopped saying “Gee.”
After dinner we found a horse cab in front of the restaurant and drove home. It was late twilight, and as we crossed the Concorde, we saw a tremendous big yellow full moon rising over Notre Dame. I nearly always stop when I’m driving over the Concorde bridge because I love that view down the river so, but the cab went so slowly we didn’t have to. It was all purple and gold, with the yellow moon and reflections in the Seine. I never saw such an evening.
The next morning I received your dear cable and that pleased me more than anything else. Thank you all for thinking of me. I’ve never been so far away before, have I?
The other night we returned home late and very tired and we were too late for dinner,—for a change,—so we went out and gave a farewell dinner to ourselves: four omelettes and lots of strawberries. Home and to bed early—we were tired and excited and happy all at once. We left Miss Curtis’s car beside the house in an open space behind the sidewalk, having taken everything takable out, and disconnected two spark-plugs.
We were barely horizontal between the sheets when tat-tat-tat—came at the door. Madame, backed by half the pensionnaires and the concierge, were in procession. We were taking such a risk in leaving the car there—such vandalism mauvais gens could commit. It was unthinkable to leave a car there, la la, and, anyway, we would have a procès verbal brought against us.
If it had been our car we would have taken the risk, but we didn’t dare with some one’s else. Up we got and dressed as hurriedly as possible. It seemed like a nightmare. Back we put the spark-plugs and the other things and started off.
We went to our place, where the jitney is kept, to ask if they could possibly take another car, and they said yes, there was just room—but that we’d have to take the car out before 7.30 in the morning because the car in back of it was to leave at that time. It didn’t seem as though we could bear it. I suggested, although I knew it was wild (Marje is too mechanical for words), that we leave the brake off and put logs under the wheels and that he just give it a shove at 7.29 the next morning and roll it down the incline into the street. By Jove, he agreed. We slept peacefully that night and called for the car at a quarter of nine the next morning, as we always do.
Marje discovered that her passport had run out, and as it is always a good thing to have about, we chased over to the Embassy after Saturday morning conference and had it renewed. She was off, too, for a sudden trip to the devastated towns, and we realized that we were to be separated for two whole days. You know, it was the first time since Bordeaux. I felt widowed, and she thought it was going to be a crazy party and was off the whole idea, anyway. But she left at three sharp and I went and had a shampoo. The Ambulance men who had brought over the candy from Mrs. Crocker had asked Marje to dine at the Chinese Umbrella that night, and she hadn’t been able to let them know she couldn’t make it; so just before she left I promised to take Mrs. Allen and Mary, with whom I was going to spend the night, to dinner there and ward the men off. The bank was closed, and Marje had had to borrow some money from me. This and the dinner don’t sound related, but they were.