“I don’t see any need to consult Miss Barfoot,” he replied stiffly. “I am not such a helpless man, Monica.”
Yet a feeling of inability to grapple with such an undertaking as this grew on him the more he thought of it. Naturally, his mind busied itself with such vague knowledge as he had gathered of those places in the South of France, where rich English people go to escape their own climate: Nice, Cannes. He could not imagine himself setting forth to these regions. Doubtless it was possible to travel thither, and live there when one arrived, without a knowledge of French; but he pictured all sorts of humiliating situations resulting from his ignorance. Above everything he dreaded humiliation in Monica’s sight; it would be intolerable to have her comparing him with men who spoke foreign languages, and were at home on the Continent.
Nevertheless, he wrote to his friend Newdick, and invited him to dine, solely for the purpose of talking over this question with him in private. After dinner he broached the subject. To his surprise, Newdick had ideas concerning Nice and Cannes and such places. He had heard about them from the junior partner of his firm, a young gentleman who talked largely of his experiences abroad.
“An immoral lot there,” he said, smiling and shaking his head. “Queer goings on.”
“Oh, but that’s among the foreigners, isn’t it?”
Thereupon Mr. Newdick revealed his acquaintance with English literature.
“Did you ever read any of Ouida’s novels?”
“No, I never did.”
“I advise you to before you think of taking your wife over there. She writes a great deal about those parts. People get mixed up so, it seems. You couldn’t live by yourself. You have to eat at public tables, and you’d have all sorts of people trying to make acquaintance with Mrs. Widdowson. They’re a queer lot, I believe.”
He abandoned the thought, at once and utterly. When Monica learnt this—he gave only vague and unsatisfactory reasons—she fell back into her despondent mood. For a whole day she scarcely uttered a word.