As I sat down in the coupé, and Alphonse was about to close the door, I saw behind him a lady standing in the heavy downfall of rain. I said in my best French: “Get in, madame. I will get out and leave you the carriage.” For a moment she hesitated, and then got in and stood a moment, saying, “Thank you, but I insist that monsieur does not get out in the rain.” It was just then a torrent. “Let me leave monsieur where he would desire to go.” I said I intended to go to the Rue de la Paix, but I added, “If madame has no objection, may I not first drop her wherever she wishes to go?”
“Oh, no, no! It is far—too far.” She was, as it seemed to me, somewhat agitated. For a moment I supposed this to be due to the annoyance a ride with a strange man might have suggested as compromising, or at least as the Parisian regards such incidents. Alphonse waited calmly, the door still open.
Again I offered to leave her the carriage, and again she refused. I said, “Might I then ask where madame desires to go?”
She hesitated a moment, and then asked irrelevantly, “Monsieur is not French?”
“Oh, no. I am an American.”
“And I, too.” She showed at once a certain relief, and I felt with pleasure that had I been other than her countryman she would not have trusted me as she did. She added: “On no account could I permit you to get out in this storm. If I ask you to set me down in the Bois—I mean, if not inconvenient—”
“Of course,” I replied. “Get up, Alphonse.” It was, I thought, a rather vague direction, but there was already something odd in this small adventure. No doubt she would presently be more specific. “The Bois, Alphonse,” I repeated. A glance at my countrywoman left with me the impression of a lady, very handsome, about twenty-five, and presumably married. Why she was so very evidently perturbed I could not see. As we drove on I asked her for a more definite direction. She hesitated for a moment and then said Avenue du Bois de Boulogne.
“That will answer,” I returned. “But that is only a road, and it is raining hard. You have no umbrella. Surely you do not mean me to drop you on an open road in this storm.” I was becoming curious.
“It will do—it will do,” she said.
I thought it strange, but I called out the order to Alphonse and bade him promise a good pourboire.