These questions interested me later as much as they did then. Was the Old World so different from the New World or was I taking for granted both a latitude and an attitude at home different from what I was going to meet? Little did I realize that I was destined to live in Paris as a bride and to bring up my children there to the age when I should have these problems to face from the standpoint of a mother of three girls.
1908
CHAPTER III
A HONEYMOON PROMISE
WE left Oxford very suddenly. Six weeks in the Bodleian Library, in spite of canoeing every afternoon, sufficed to go through a collection of contemporary pamphlets about the Guises. And then we were getting hungry. Since he never changes the menu, roast beef and roast lamb alternating night after night, and accompanied by naked potatoes and cabbage, must content the Englishman. But all who have not a British birthright either lose their appetites or go wild after a time. We thought that we could not stand another day of seeing that awful two-compartment vegetable dish. It never contained a surprise. You could swear with safety to your soul that when the lid was lifted a definite combination of white and green would meet your eye.
So, when in the early days of July nineteen hundred and eight the London newspapers published telegrams from Constantinople that foreshadowed startling changes in Turkey, we were ready to flit. We had planned to spend our honeymoon winter in Asia Minor, anyway, and thought we might as well get out there as soon as possible. The spirit of adventure is strong in the blood of the twenties and decisions are made without reflection. It is great to be young enough to have a sudden change of plans matter to none, least of all to oneself. On Monday afternoon we were canoeing on the Cherwell, with no other thought than the very pleasant one of doing the same thing on the morrow. The next afternoon we were in a train speeding from Calais to Paris, trying to recuperate from the Channel passage.
Herbert and I both knew Paris. But we did not know Paris together, and that made all the difference in the world. When we reached the Gare du Nord, we were as filled with the joy of the unknown as if we had been entering Timbuktoo. On the train we discussed hotels. A slim pocketbook was the only bank in the world to draw upon for a long journey. On the other side was the less commonsense but more convincing argument, that this was once in our lives, and that if it ever was excusable to do things up right, now was the time. The pocketbook was so slim, however, that until we stepped out into the dazzling lights, we were not altogether sure that it would not be a modest little hotel. We compounded with prudence by hailing a fiacre instead of one of the new auto-taxis, and directed the cocher to take us where we wanted to go.