As I sat down in the coupe, 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_.
As we drove away, all of the many people in the streets were hurrying
to take refuge from the sudden and unexpected downfall of heavy rain.
Women picked their way with the skill of the Parisienne, men ran for
shelter, and the carriages coming in haste from the afternoon drives
thronged the great avenue. The scene was not without amusement for
people not subject to its inconvenience and to the damage of gay
gowns. I made some laughing comment. She made no reply. Presently,
however, she took out her purse and said, "Monsieur will at least
permit me to--"
"Pardon me," I returned gaily: "I am just now the host, and as it may
never again chance that I have the pleasure of madame for a guest, I
must insist on my privileges."
For the first time she laughed, as if more at ease, and said, looking
up from her purse and flushing a little: "Unluckily, I cannot insist,
as I find that I am, for the time, too poor to be proud. I can only
pay in thanks. I am glad it is a fellow-countryman to whom I am
indebted."
We seemed to be getting on to more agreeable social terms, and I
expressed my regret that the torrent outside was beginning to leak in
at the window and through the top of the carriage. For a moment she
made no remark, and then said with needless emphasis:
"Yes, yes. It is dreadful. I hope--I mean, I trust--that it will never
occur again."
It was odd and hardly courteous. I said only, "Yes, it must be
disagreeable."
"Oh, I mean--I can't explain--I mean this--special ride, and I--I am
so wet."
Of course I accepted this rather inadequate explanation of language
which somehow did not seem to me to fit a woman evidently of the best
social class. As if she too felt the need to substitute a material
inconvenience for a less comprehensible and too abrupt statement, she
added: "I am really drenched," and then, as though with a return of
some more urgent feeling, "but there are worse things."
I said, "That may very well be." I began to realize as singular the
whole of this interview--the broken phrases which I could not
interpret, the look of worry, the embarrassment of long silences.
After a time, at her request, we turned into one of the smaller
avenues. Meanwhile I made brief efforts at impersonal talk--the rain,
the vivid lightning,--wondering if it were the latter which made her
so nervous. She murmured short replies, and at last I gave up my
efforts at talk, and we drove on in silence, the darkness meanwhile
coming the sooner for the storm.
By and by she said, "I owe you an apology for my preoccupation. I
am--I have reason to be--troubled. You must pardon my silence."
Much surprised, I acquiesced with some trifling remark, and we went
on, neither of us saying a word, while the rain beat on the leaky
cover of the carriage, and now and then I heard a loud "Sacre!" from
the coachman as the lightning flashed.
It was now quite dark. We were far across the Bois and in a narrow
road. To set her more at ease, I was about to tell her my name and
official position, when of a sudden she cried:
"Oh, monsieur, we are followed! I am sure we are followed. What shall
I do?"
Here was a not very agreeable adventure.