“MY dear fellow,” said Romain, wandering vaguely into the breakfast-room at about eleven the following morning. “I really am quite desolated, but I find I can’t take you to the Bank to-day. It appears that I promised your aunt in some dreadful forgotten hour to go to a wedding, a funeral, or a christening—I never can keep any account of church functions, can you?—of a distant cousin on her side of the family. You and I, my dear Jean, manage better; we keep, as it were, our relatives down—between us I doubt if we could raise half a dozen; but I have always noticed a terrible tendency in families such as your aunt’s to have relations, here, there, and everywhere, and such substantial people too; and one can’t get away from substantial people in church. For my part I am a good Catholic, I think I may fairly say. I have the mind of a Byzantine, but I do not like the personal note in religion. I would so very much rather not know whom I am praying beside. A smart wedding is one thing, but your aunt’s relations do not have smart weddings. One goes to out-of-the-way churches where large, red-faced women in purple dresses weep into their handkerchiefs. I do not find myself inspired to comfort them. No, I have had my déjeuner, thanks, in my room—and you?”
It seemed that Henri had brought Jean something more than an hour ago.
“Yes,” said Romain thoughtfully, “Henri is an excellent servant, he thinks of things. Do you know I have such a good idea. He shall take you to the Bank this morning, and afterwards find you rooms! After all I do not think I should be of the least use in looking for rooms, candidly—I am not a man of affairs, and when it comes to questions of money I am very like the lilies of the field; as I have neither toiled nor spun, you know, I don’t quite appreciate how to economize. I daresay Henri knows a great deal about Paris, and I recommend you to find out what. Henri, take Monsieur le Baron to this address, and afterwards put yourself at his disposal to look for rooms. Now, my dear Jean, I don’t think there is anything more I can do for you, is there? Your aunt finds herself a little fatigued this morning, and I believe will not be able to give herself the pleasure of seeing you. That matters the less as I shall expect you, of course, to look on this house as your headquarters; come in and out whenever you like, you know. Au revoir!”
It would hardly be worth while relating the parting blessing of Romain if Jean had been so fortunate as to see him in the weeks that followed; but though he called six times upon his uncle in the next fortnight, he never found Romain in. Once indeed he met him in the evening entering a café, but Romain did not seem to see him. He was very much pre-occupied at the moment, preserving in his own inimitable way the sanctities of the home; but there was something in his eyes as he looked at Jean without seeing him which decided Jean not to call again without an invitation; and the invitation did not come. It was to Henri instead that Jean owed his introduction to Paris.
So this was Paris—Paris the siren city of all the world—this drenched, grey, violently noisy spectacle. The streets were full of thick and greasy mud, a multitude of shrieking taxis, thundering drays, and bustling tradesmen’s carts flung themselves fantastically through the crowded thoroughfares. The shrouded, dripping houses seemed to Jean to look disreputably, unwholesomely fatigued; the raw, heavy air made him shiver, and hurt his chest.
“Could we,” he asked Henry, “go by the Louvre and Nôtre Dame?”
Henri looked surprised, but he only replied:
“Where you wish, Monsieur; that you see away there on your left is the Louvre. Myself I think it triste, but it is worse inside; there is a cemetery there, and a cemetery indoors—there is something about it that chills the spine! Monsieur does not want to enter now, does he?”
“Just a minute,” pleaded Jean, “only a minute, if we have time.”
“But yes,” said Henri, giving in with a good grace when he found he must. “All the time in the world, only Monsieur le Baron must not expect to find much to amuse him in the Louvre; places of that kind in Paris are chiefly valuable for the English and the Americans—for that, yes, they are useful; but for us, I assure Monsieur, they are not at all considered the thing. There is the Luxembourg, now, which is far more gay, and one need not have been dead many years before one appears in it. But Monsieur will please himself.”