"Alone!" cried Madame; "my conscience would not allow it. Your mother trusts me."
Madame Raymond hailed a cabby.
"To the Cluny Museum," said she, with finality.
In its setting, the Cluny Museum is one of the most delightful spots in Paris. On the Boulevard Saint-Michel and the Boulevard Saint-Germain one has the life of Paris of to-day. Looking out from the little park with its remains of Roman baths and archæological treasures of old Lutetia scattered around in the shrubbery, one sees a fascinating carrefour of the Latin Quarter, noisy, bustling, ever-changing. It is a contrast more striking than any that Rome affords. On the other side, where one enters the Museum, you have the atmosphere of the middle ages, with the old well and the court yard and the fifteenth-century façade. Across the street, the great buildings of the Sorbonne and Collège de France seem to be carrying on the traditions of the past. But if you had to go inside with a governess who insisted on showing you everything in every room, you would rebel as I did.
Madame Raymond did not have it all in her head. She peered down over the glass cases and read the descriptions in a high voice, adding pages out of a guide book from time to time. She was near-sighted. As she droned along, I plotted a scheme for kidnapping her spectacles. When we left, I had seen embroideries and laces and carriages and cradles and slippers of famous people and stolen stained-glass windows to her heart's content.
We went to Foyot's, opposite the Luxembourg Palace, for lunch. After the meal was ordered, the waiter brought the carte de vins.
"A bottle of Medoc," said Madame. "I prefer red wine, don't you, my dear?"
"Plain water for me. No mineral water. Eau fraîche out of a carafe," said I.
"Extraordinary!" cried Madame.
"I think it is dreadful to drink wine," I protested, half in earnest and half in joke. "The Bible says strong drink is a mockery. The first thing I remember about Sunday school is that text."