“Why didn’t you give me the low-down on this wild woman of Paris? I wasn’t at all prepared for the shock. She is too beautiful for words: but the language she uses!
“I was walking along in front of the Louvre yesterday when a cab stopped beside me and a woman commanded me to get in. Not having anything better to do, I hastened to comply, but as soon as I got in, she threw her arms around my neck and kissed me as I have never been kissed before. And she kept at me to explain why I hadn’t let her know I was in Paris again. She kept calling me ‘youngster’ and ‘my little home companion’ and ‘baby face,’ but I didn’t mind that as long as she did the other things she did. Why, if Vyvy ever imagined that I had been with a woman that beautiful and that love-loving, she’d never speak to me again.
“I didn’t know what to tell her, so I just didn’t say anything, but kept her busy doing other and more interesting things than talking. I assure you, we had a delightful ride, across the river and up to a studio building.
“But as we entered the building, three men who apparently were officers of the Parisian police, stepped out from their concealment behind the ornamental doorway and seized my beautiful companion very unceremoniously and none too gently.
“She was furious and highly insulted, but one of the men said something to her about ‘Keith’ and ‘Berta’ and then she turned on me. She started to swear in German and the officers laughed at her, so she turned her tongue upon them.
“The officers apparently thought I was the one who had brought about her arrest, for they grabbed me in turn and kissed me hither and yon while deluging me with congratulations on all sorts of impossible achievements. I backed away in confusion, and the last I heard of or from the lady came as they led her up the steps to go to her apartment. Then she turned and actually smiled at me and said, ‘When the heart ignores the head, youngster—I admit you deceived me.’
“‘I’m sorry—,’ I said, because I couldn’t help it. I hated to see her go like that.
“But the point is: what in the name of heavens have you been doing to get a woman like that?”
And I’m sure I couldn’t answer that question, for I didn’t know myself. It just came about, that’s all.... And so the Madame, the charming, beautiful Ada Gedouin, had gone. I couldn’t say that I was glad—I just couldn’t.