Part 9

“I know that.”

“You are so deadly civil.”

“Not to everybody, only to servants.” I said this apologetically.

“You never keep a steady hand. You either grovel at their feet or snap their heads off.”

“Quite true,” I admitted, humbly.

“But it was grand, wasn’t it?” she said.

“Unspeakably grand.”

And for Americans it was.

We were still at “The Insular,” when one day I took up a handful of what had once been a tight bodice, and said to my sister:

“See how thin I’ve grown! I believe I am starving to death.”

“No wonder,” she answered, gloomily, “with this awful English cooking! I’m nearly dead from your experiment of getting an English point of view. I want something to eat—something that I like. I want a beefsteak, with mushrooms, and some potatoes au gratin, like those we have in America. I hate the stuff we get here. I wish I could never see another chop as long as I live.”

“‘The Insular’ is considered very good,” I remarked, pensively.

“Considered!” cried she. “Whose consideration counts, I should like to know, when you are always hungry for something you can’t get?”

“I know it; and we are paying such prices, too. Who, except ostriches, could eat their nasty preserves for breakfast when they are having grape-fruit at home? And then their vile aspic jellies and potted meats for luncheon, which look like sausage congealed in cold gravy, and which taste like gum arabic.”

“Let’s move,” said my sister. “Not into another hotel—that wouldn’t be much better. But lot’s take lodgings. I’ve heard that they were lovely. Then we can order what we like. Besides, it will be very much cheaper.”

“I didn’t come over here to economize,” I said.

“Well, I wouldn’t say a word if we were getting anything for our money, but we are not. Besides, when you get to Paris you will wish you hadn’t been so extravagant here.”

“Are the Paris shops more fascinating than those in Regent Street?” I asked.

“Much more.”

“More alluring, than Bond Street?”

“More so than any in the world,” she affirmed, with the religious fervor which always characterizes her tone when she speaks of Paris. The very leather of her purse fairly squeaks with ecstasy when she thinks of Paris.

“Heavens!” I murmured, with awe, for whenever she won’t go to Du Maurier’s grave with me, and when I won’t do the crown jewels in the Tower with her, we always compromise amiably on Bond Street, and come home beaming with joy.

“We might go now just to look,” I said. “I have the addresses of some very good lodgings.”

“We’ll take a cab by the hour,” said she, putting her hat on before the mirror, and turning her head on one side to view her completed handiwork.

“Now take off that watch and that belt and that chatelaine if you don’t want these harpies to think we are ‘rich Americans’ (how I have come to hate that phrase over here!), because they will charge accordingly.”

She looked at me with genuine admiration.

“Do you know, dear, you are really clever at times?”

I colored with pleasure. It is so seldom that she finds anything practical in me to praise.