'Oh, yes,' she explained to me afterwards, 'my uncle is a good man. My
aunt and cousins are very good women. But for me, to live with
them--pas possible, mon cher. Their thoughts were not my thoughts, we
could not speak the same language. They disapproved of me unutterably.
They suffered agonies, poor things. Oh, they were very kind, very
patient. But--! My gods were their devils. My father--my great, grand,
splendid father--was "poor Alfred," "poor uncle Alfred." Que
voulez-vous? And then--the life, the society! The parishioners--the
people who came to tea--the houses where we sometimes dined! Are you
interested in crops? In the preservation of game? In the diseases of
cattle? Olàlà! (C'est bien le cas de s'en servir, de cette
expression-là.) Olàlà, làlà! And then--have you ever been homesick?
Oh, I longed, I pined, for Paris, as one suffocating would long, would
die, for air. Enfin, I could not stand it any longer. They thought it
wicked to smoke cigarettes. My poor aunt--when she smelt
cigarette-smoke in my bed-room! Oh, her face! I had to sneak away,
behind the shrubbery at the end of the garden, for stealthy whiffs.
And it was impossible to get French tobacco. At last I took the bull
by the horns, and fled. It will have been a terrible shock for them.
But better one good blow than endless little ones; better a lump-sum
than instalments with interest.'
But what was she going to do? How was she going to live? For, after
all, much as she loved Paris, she couldn't subsist on its air and
sunshine.
'Oh, never fear! I'll manage somehow. I'll not die of hunger,' she
said confidently.