"Frieda is much given to exaggeration," I remarked, uneasily.
"She is not. Think of what my feelings would have been on the day when they would have sent me out of the hospital, with not a friend in the world, not a kindly heart to turn to!"
"My dear child," I said, "I believe that, if you have not been altogether forgotten by the gods and goddesses, it was because you were worthy of their kindest regard. I am confident that our little trip on the water will make you sleep soundly, and I trust that you will have pleasant dreams."
Yes! I occasionally call her my dear child, now. Neither my forty years nor the thinness of my thatch really entitles me to consider myself sufficiently venerable to have been her parent. But I am the least formal of men and find it difficult to call her Madame or Mrs. Dupont. If I did so now, I think that she would wonder if I was aggrieved against her, for some such foolish reason as women are always keen on inventing and annoying themselves with. Once in a while I even call her Frances, but it is a habit I ought not to permit to grow upon me. There are altogether too many O'Flaherty's in the world, masculine, feminine and neuter.
She closed her door, after a friendly pressure of our hands, and I went to my room to write. The ideas, however, came but slowly and, upon arrival, were of the poorest. I, therefore, soon took my pipe, put my feet on the window ledge and listened to a distant phonograph. At last, came silence, a gradual extinguishing of lights in windows opposite, and yawns from myself. I must repeat these trips, they make for sound slumber.
On the next day I took it upon myself to go to the small house in Brooklyn where Frances had formerly boarded. She was anxious to know if any letters might have come for her that had not been forwarded. She had wondered why her husband's parents had never written to announce the dreadful news which, however, had been briefly confirmed on inquiry at the Consulate. In the eastern section of our Greater City, which is about as familiar to me as the wilds of Kamchatka, I promptly lost myself. But kindly souls directed me, and I reached a dwelling that was all boarded up and bore a sign indicating that the premises were to be let. Thence, I went to a distant real estate office where the people were unable to give me any indication or trace of the former tenants, who had rented out rooms.
On my return I found Eulalie rummaging among my bureau drawers. She held up two undergarments and bade me observe the perfection of her darning, whereupon I assured her that she was a large, fat pearl without price.
"Oui, Monsieur," she assented, without understanding me in the least. "Madame Dupont has gone to my cousin, Madame Smith. Her name was Carpaux, like mine, but she married an American painter."
"An artist?" I inquired.
"Oui, Monsieur. He used to paint and decorate and put on wallpaper. Then, he went away to Alaska after gold and never sent his address. So Félicie has opened a cleaning and dyeing shop and is doing very well. She has not heard from Smith for sixteen years, so that she thinks he is, perhaps, lost. She has told me that she wanted an American person, who could speak French, to wait on customers and keep the books and send the bills and write names and addresses on the packages. She lives in the back of the store. There is a big bed that would be very commodious for putting the baby on. Madame Dupont has gone to see. Next week I go to work there also and I will keep an eye on the baby when Madame is at the counter."