“Bon voyage!” cry the three girls and Père Valois and the two soldiers, as the last trunk is chained on.
The dingy vehicle groans its way slowly out of the court. Just as it reaches the last gate it stops.
“What’s the matter?” I ask, poking my head out of the window.
“Monsieur,” says the aged cocher, “it is an impossibility! I regret very much to say that your bicycle will not pass through the gate.”
A dozen heads in the windows above offer suggestions. I climb out and take a look; there are at least four inches to spare on either side in passing through the iron posts.
“Ah!” cries my cocher enthusiastically, “monsieur is right, happily for us!”
He cracks his whip, the little horse gathers itself together—a moment of careful driving and we are through and into the street and rumbling away, amid cheers from the windows above. As I glance over my traps, I see a small bunch of roses tucked in the corner of my roll of rugs with an engraved card attached. “From Mademoiselle Ernestine Valois,” it reads, and on the other side is written, in a small, fine hand, “Bon voyage.”
I look back to bow my acknowledgment, but it is too late; we have turned the corner and the rue Vaugirard is but a memory!
*****
But why go on telling you of what the little shops contain—how narrow and picturesque are the small streets—how gay the boulevards—what they do at the “Bullier”—or where they dine? It is Love that moves Paris—it is the motive power of this big, beautiful, polished city—the love of adventure, the love of intrigue, the love of being a bohemian if you will—but it is Love all the same!