A breath from my earliest youth—that was Eloise.
At the Place Vendôme, the servant whom I had commissioned to find out Franzius' address handed me a paper on which he had written it. It was in the Rue Dijon, Boulevard Montparnasse.
I put the paper in my pocket, ran upstairs, and, hearing voices and laughter through the partly opened door of the great salon on the first floor, I burst into the room.
Great Heavens!
The child who gets into a shower bath, and, not knowing, pulls the string, could not receive a greater shock than I.
The room was filled with gentlemen in correct evening attire. It was, in fact, one of what my guardian was pleased to call his "political receptions."
I was dressed in a morning frock-coat, the dust of Etiolles was on my boots, my hair was in disorder, my face flushed. If I had entered rolling-drunk, in evening clothes, I would not have committed so great a crime against the convenances.
And it was too late to back out, simply because my impetuosity had carried me into the room too far.
My guardian gazed at the spectacle before him, but not by as much as the lifting of an eyebrow did that fine old gentleman betray his discomfiture.