Great heavens! how I raised my eyebrows at that; remembering that in England I had been always rejected on account of being too warm.
Now, his proposition was this:—If Monsieur felt disposed to write a manuscript, in which the scene should be laid in France, and some of the characters, at least, be French, and also allow himself a little greater latitude, then he should be delighted to put the manuscript in the hands of their very best translator, and give it out to an audience that, above all things, admired vigour.
I heard all this with satisfaction. The offer meant a lot more work for me, but I did not mind that, with success—dear success—in view. I closed with his proposition at once, and after some formalities and details had been gone into and settled, I rushed home to tell Howard.
So, for a time, settled into working intellectual grooves, our life ran on quietly from day to day with a fair prospect on ahead of us.
And then came an unlucky incident which jerked the wheels of Howard's existence out of the narrow, hard line of effort, and after that they ran along anyhow, sometimes on and sometimes off it, and kept me in dread of a total smash. The Champs Elysees were full of the late afternoon sunlight, and we sauntered slowly, criticising the occupants of the various carriages rolling up to the great arch of Napoleon, and arguing in a broken, desultory way on our usual subject of talk—literature.
Howard was on the outside, nearest the road, walking on the actual kerb, and flicking up the leaves in the gutter, as he talked, with the point of his cane. As we strolled, with our eyes more or less directed on the string of vehicles moving in the centre of the sunny road, we noticed one small, black brougham going the same way as ourselves, that seemed conspicuous by being closed amongst the rest of the open victorias. Suddenly it detached itself from the line of other carriages and dashed up alongside of the pavement where we were walking. Its wheels ground in the gutter, and I caught Howard's arm to draw him more on to the pavement.
"Look out!" I exclaimed. "What a way to drive!" I added, as the coachman whipped up his horses and drove on some fifty yards, close to the kerb. There he pulled up abruptly. The door of the brougham was pushed open and a woman got out. Such a figure it was that outlined itself in the sunny light, standing on the white trottoir, and with the vista of the Champs Elysees behind it—a form seductive in every line, with a fine hip, and a tiny arched foot that tapped the pavement impatiently.
"What's up?" I said to Howard. "Whom is she waiting for, I wonder?"
A few steps more brought us up to her, and then, to our astonishment, she turned fully towards me, and said in her own language,—
"Will you come and dine with me this evening, Monsieur? The carriage will take us home now!"