When Herbert returned from the Bibliothèque Nationale at noon, I told him about my visitors.
"Why on earth—" he began to comment.
"Oh, they are going to do the Grand Boulevards with a couple of young American fellows who are in Paris for a vacation," I said.
"What's the matter with those girls," exclaimed Herbert. "What's gotten into their heads? Do they think they can come here and start off on an expedition like that? If they were older, it would be different. If they're afraid to tell the Hostel people, it shows they know well enough it isn't just the thing for them to do."
"I thought so myself."
"Well, why didn't you right up and say it from the beginning?"
"Girls wouldn't take it from me. My game was to be absorbent and get the whole story. They're nearly as old as I am. I couldn't dictate to them. I don't know how to get out of it."
"I see," mused Herbert.
The girls came in about six o'clock to dress for dinner. They had their suitcases and some flowers, and Esther brought her light blue hat in a paper bundle. I had told them to telephone their boys to come to dinner with us before starting out for the theater. This was the only way I could think of to manage things so that Herbert could see them before they started away.
Esther put on the pretty bright blue dress she had bought at the model shop to go with the light blue hat. She placed the hat, still in its paper cover, on the top of the wardrobe in the dining-room. Gabry played with Scrappie, sitting on the floor beside her, where she was tied in her papa's steamer chair. Esther perched herself on the stool in the kitchen and watched me frying sausages. Herbert came in after a bit and wheeled right around from the front door into the kitchen. He didn't have to walk. It wasn't far enough.