“Ah! non,” she assured him. “I like your London—what leetle I have seen of it. But that is not very much. I take Bertha for one walk in the park, or down to what you call Kensington, every day. And many times we ascend to the roof of an omnibus. But omnibuses are so puzzling,” she added, with a laugh. “You never know where one goes. We always ascend and seet there till we come to the end of the voyage. But we make some amusing errors many times. Only the day before to-day we ascended on a ’bus outside the Gallery Nationale, where are the fountains, paid twenty centimes—I mean two pennies—eh bien! the next street-corner past a church they turned us off—the omnibus went no farther!”
The millionaire laughed aloud, saying—
“It must have been a Royal Oak or Cricklewood ’bus coming home. They go no farther than Charing Cross.”
“But oh!” she continued, “we go many time a long, long way—out into the country—away from London. Once we went on and on till I thought we would never arrest—right on till we came to a small town down by the river—Tweet-ham—Tweek-ham—the conductor called it, or something like that. Your English names are so very difficult. There was an island in the river, and an old church close by.”
“Twickenham! You mean Twickenham!” he exclaimed. “Fancy your going so far on an omnibus! Your adventures, mademoiselle, must have been amusing.”
“Ah yes. But poor madame! We did not return till seven of the clock, and she was fearing something had happened.”
“Naturally,” he said. “But let me give you a word of advice, mademoiselle. Be very careful where you go. London is not at all safe for a foreign lady like yourself, more especially if her face is as attractive as yours.”
“Oh!” she laughed. “Mine has no attraction, surely. And I tell you, m’sieur, that I am not in the least afraid.”
He had expected her to be impressed by his flattery, but she was not. On the contrary, she passed his remark as though it had never been uttered, and continued to relate to him her impressions of London and London life, some of which were distinctly humorous, for the streets of our metropolis always strike the foreigner as full of quaint incongruities, from the balancing of the hansom cab to the kilt of the Highland soldier.
He found her conversation amusing and interesting. She was somehow different from the wide circle of women of his acquaintance, those society dames who borrowed his money, ate his dinners, and gave tone to his entertainments. And this was exactly how she desired to impress him.