Then Lucille closed the bar for its annual renovation and the faithful Louis was sent on a vacation to his family on the German frontier, where he rested from his cocktail-mixing and studied English, which he rarely had occasion to use and which was quite as bad as his French. The only thing American about this “American Bar” was the sign over the door, beneath which appeared a long list of American drinks with weird names, translated to him from a bartender’s guide published on the Bowery in the early sixties, not one concoction of which he had ever been able to mix.
During the summer period workmen invaded the Grillon and a general varnishing took place. The small tables were repolished and the chimney leading from the tiny kitchen cleaned. The piano was tuned and the cozy interior made spick and span for the grand opening in the fall. Then all of the old crowd would return; it was like the reunion of a family: Jeannette and Marcelle and the editor and the Count, from his villa by the sea, and the Spaniard, who never left Paris. Then such a dinner! So much had happened in the meantime, and there was so much to talk about. The Countess had been a month at Trouville.
“Ah! mes chers enfants,” she would begin in her gentle voice, “It was not like the old days there any more. Such a common lot about the petits chevaux; none of the great toilettes I used to see, nor as many louis won and lost, either,” she added, nodding her head.
“I played my small purse cautiously on the ‘bande’ one day. I won a thousand francs, and the next morning I took my little bonne Thérèse south; she is not very strong and she was so happy to see her mother.”
The editor rose and bowed.
“You have a good heart, old friend,” he said, as he bent and kissed the tips of her fingers.
“We stayed there a week on their farm,” continued the Countess, “and I spent all day in the sun watching the pigs and the chickens. You have no idea what an appetite I had and what a rest in my old clothes.”
“Come, come, all of you, my children,” cried Lucille, “my soup is getting cold;” and she buried the silver ladle in the purée.
For some moments after the company were served they remained silent. The purée deserved a prayer of thanks, while Marie, Lucille’s bonne, beamed at their satisfaction from the doorway of her kitchen.
“It is good, is it not?” laughed Lucille, delighted as a child over the new soup.