"I could travel this way forever and forever!" She sighed and extended her arms, then clasped her hands upon her breast. It was an unaffected gesture of youth and pleasure and enthusiasm.
It made him smile. "Wait until you have seen Paris," he said.
"But I have seen Paris."
"With the eyes of a child; now you are a woman."
"That is so," somewhat dreamily, as though this womanhood were no new subject of reverie. "I am eighteen—but why should Paris be especially attractive to a woman?"
"Paris is the world."
"And so is this."
"This, my dear——" the remonstrance on his lips was interrupted by the arrival of the fish.
They were very good: "Ravissant!" exclaimed Natalie, who displayed a very pitiless appreciation of them. "Not so bad," admitted papa.
"And so I am to stay with my cousin, the Marquise," said the girl, after the cravings of an excellent appetite had been satisfied. "Papa, even you can find no fault with this Deidesheimer," filling her glass as she spoke.