I instantly became conscious of an extreme curiosity to see this bright cousin who was an art-student.
“He is gone to the banker’s?” I asked.
“Yes, to the banker’s. He took me to a hotel, such a queer, quaint, delicious little place, with a court in the middle, and a gallery all round, and a lovely landlady, in such a beautifully fluted cap, and such a perfectly fitting dress! After a while we came out to walk to the banker’s, for I haven’t got any French money. But I was very dizzy from the motion of the vessel, and I thought I had better sit down. He found this place for me here, and he went off to the banker’s himself. I am to wait here till he comes back.”
It may seem very fantastic, but it passed through my mind that he would never come back. I settled myself in my chair beside Miss Spencer and determined to await the event. She was extremely observant; there was something touching in it. She noticed everything that the movement of the street brought before us,—peculiarities of costume, the shapes of vehicles, the big Norman horses, the fat priests, the shaven poodles. We talked of these things, and there was something charming in her freshness of perception and the way her book-nourished fancy recognized and welcomed everything.
“And when your cousin comes back, what are you going to do?” I asked.
She hesitated a moment. “We don’t quite know.”
“When do you go to Paris? If you go by the four o’clock train, I may have the pleasure of making the journey with you.”
“I don’t think we shall do that. My cousin thinks I had better stay here a few days.”
“Oh!” said I; and for five minutes said nothing more. I was wondering what her cousin was, in vulgar parlance, “up to.” I looked up and down the street, but saw nothing that looked like a bright American art-student. At last I took the liberty of observing that Havre was hardly a place to choose as one of the æsthetic stations of a European tour. It was a place of convenience, nothing more; a place of transit, through which transit should be rapid. I recommended her to go to Paris by the afternoon train, and meanwhile to amuse herself by driving to the ancient fortress at the mouth of the harbor,—that picturesque circular structure which bore the name of Francis the First, and looked like a small castle of St. Angelo. (It has lately been demolished.)
She listened with much interest; then for a moment she looked grave.