“More so than any in the world,” she affirmed, with the religious fervor which always characterizes her tone when she speaks of Paris. The very leather of her purse fairly squeaks with ecstasy when she thinks of Paris.
“Heavens!” I murmured, with awe, for whenever she won’t go to Du Maurier’s grave with me, and when I won’t do the crown jewels in the Tower with her, we always compromise amiably on Bond Street, and come home beaming with joy.
“We might go now just to look,” I said. “I have the addresses of some very good lodgings.”
“We’ll take a cab by the hour,” said she, putting her hat on before the mirror, and turning her head on one side to view her completed handiwork.
“Now take off that watch and that belt and that chatelaine if you don’t want these harpies to think we are ‘rich Americans’ (how I have come to hate that phrase over here!), because they will charge accordingly.”
She looked at me with genuine admiration.
“Do you know, dear, you are really clever at times?”
I colored with pleasure. It is so seldom that she finds anything practical in me to praise.
“Now mind, we are just going to look,” she cautioned, as we rang a bell. “We must not do anything in a hurry.”
We came out half an hour afterwards and got into the cab without looking at each other.