Here I pause to stare appreciatively at the Fontaine St. Michel, amid whose icicles the sunbeams play at hide-and-seek. Then I watch the steam of a tug which the sunshine tangles in fleeces of gold amid the bare branches of a marronnier; after which in the same zestful way I regard a hearty man on a sand-barge toasting some beef on a sharpened stick over a fire. Suddenly these humble things seem to become alive with interest for me.
“Yes,” I continue, “love is an intoxicant, marriage the most effective of soberers. It is a part of life’s discipline, a bachelor’s punishment for his sins, a life-long argument in which one is wise to choose an opponent one can out-voice. How the fictitious values of courtship are discounted in the mart of matrimony! It makes philosophers of us all. Having been a benedict three weeks, of course I know everything about it.”
The long slate-grey façade of the Louvre is sun-radiant, and like a point of admiration rears the Tower St. Jacques. Looking down the shining river the arches of the many bridges interlock like lacework, and like needles the little steamers dart gleaming through. The graceful river and the gleaming quays laugh in the sunshine, and as I look at them my heart laughs too.
“But,” I go on musingly, “to marry some one you don’t know, some one who has never inspired you with mad dreams, never lived for you in the glamour of romance: surely that is ideal. You have no illusions; her virtues as well as her faults are all to discover. Take my own case. So far, I haven’t discovered a single fault. My wife adores me. She can scarcely bear me out of her sight. Even now I know she’s anxiously awaiting my return; imagines I may have been run over by a taxi, and then arrested by a policeman for getting in its way. Or else I have a maîtresse. Frequently she shows signs of jealousy, and I’ve been away over an hour. Really I must hurry home to reassure her.”
With that I pass under the arch of the Institute, and turn up the rue de Seine. I glance with eager interest at the gorgelike rue Visconti; I itch to turn over the folios before the doors of the art dealers, but on I go stubbornly till I come to a doorway bearing the sign:
HÔTEL DU MONDE ET DU MOZAMBIQUE.
A certain tenebrous suggestion in the vestibule seems to account for the latter part of the title. It is a tall, decrepit building that at some time had been sandwiched between two others of more stalwart bearing who now support it. It consists chiefly of a winding stairway lit by lamps of oil. At every stage two rooms seem to happen; but they are so small as to appear accidental.
So up this precipitous stairway lightly I leap till I come to the third storey. There before a yellow door I knock three times.
“Come in!” cries a joyful voice, and I enter to find two soft arms around my neck, and two soft lips upheld expectantly.
“Hullo, Little Thing,” I shout cheerily.