"Make fun? Good God!" was all he said.
And then his mood changed. They were now being shaken across the huge, uneven paving stones of the quays, and so on to a bridge. "I never really feel at home in Paris till I've crossed the Seine," he cried joyously. "Cheer up, darling, we shall soon be at the Hôtel Saint Ange!"
"Have you ever stayed in the Hôtel Saint Ange?" she said, with a touch of curiosity in her voice.
"I used to know a fellow who lived there," he said carelessly. "But what made me pick it out was the fact that it's such a queer, beautiful old house, and with a delightful garden. Also we shall meet no English there."
"Don't you like English people?" she asked, a little protestingly.
And Dampier laughed. "I like them everywhere but in Paris," he said: and then, "But you won't be quite lonely, little lady, for a good many Americans go to the Hôtel Saint Ange. And for such a funny reason—"
"What reason?"
"It was there that Edgar Allan Poe stayed when he was in Paris."
Their carriage was now engaged in threading narrow, shadowed thoroughfares which wound through what might have been a city of the dead. From midnight till cock-crow old-world Paris sleeps, and the windows of the high houses on either side of the deserted streets through which they were now driving were all closely shuttered.
"Here we have the ceremonious, the well-bred, the tactful Paris of other days," exclaimed Dampier whimsically. "This Paris understands without any words that what we now want is to be quiet, and by ourselves, little girl!"