The White Shadow | Page 9

the
Hotel Lion d'Or.
"Jack," said she nervously, "the cinders have made your face
unpleasant. I am ashamed. They may not believe you are my husband."
"As monsieur and madame," I said, "we may have dirty faces and be
honest."
"Do you suppose they--they will believe it? These queer people--"

"They'd better!" I said fiercely.
"I--I hadn't thought of that," she said. "You see, in our own little place
in Paris everybody knew it, but here--"
I said, "Dearest, what nonsense!" and we marched unceremoniously up
to the register, where I wrote our names. Then, with a hasty little
squeeze of her gloved hand, she turned to the maid and tripped off to
inspect our quarters. While I was pumping the fat-headed old proprietor
about the trout fishing in the vicinity, the maid returned with the
request that I mount to the room above. I followed her along the tiled
passages and found Sweetheart sitting on a trunk.
"It's charming! charming!" she said. "Just look at the roses outside, and
the square, and the river! and oh, Jack, the funny little Breton cattle,
and the old man with knee-breeches! It's charming! and "--here she
caught sight of the enraptured and fascinated maid--" and you are
charming, with your red cheeks and white coiffe," she said. "Oh, how
pretty!"
"Oh, madame!" murmured the servant in dire confusion.
I said, "Dearest, that will do. Nobody speaks of my peculiar charms,
and I wish to be noticed."
The presence of the maid prevented Sweetheart from making amends,
so we told her we were satisfied, and we would spare her life if she
prepared breakfast in seventeen seconds.
She accepted the gift of existence with a dazed courtsey, and vanished.
It was refreshing to get hold of a sponge and coldwater after fourteen
hours in a cramped compartment. Hunger drove us to hurry--a thing we
rarely did in the morning--and the way we splashed cold water about
would have been fatal to any but a tiled floor.
"Dear," I said, "you have not yet seen me in my Tyrolese
knickerbockers and beautiful shooting jacket. You have never beheld

my legs clothed in Tyrolese stockings, at twenty francs a pair."
"The legs?" she inquired from the depths of a bath robe.
I ignored the question, and parted my hair with care. Then I sat down
on the window and whistled.
Of course I was ready first. Sweetheart's hair had got into a tangle and
needed to be all combed out.
"Oh, I know you are impatient, because you're whistling the Chant du
Depart," she said from the door of her toilet room.
"As usual," I said, "I am ready first."
"If you say that again "she threatened.
I said it, and dodged a sponge. Presently I was requested to open the
trunk and select a gown for her. Dear little Sweetheart! She loved to
pretend that she had so many it needed long consultation to decide
which. © 2005 by http://www.HorrorMasters.com
"The dark blue?" I inquired.
"Don't you think it is too warm?"
"The pale blue, then--or the pink and white?"
"Why not the white, with the cuffs a l'Anglaise, and the canoe hat?"
I hauled it out.
Then, of course, she changed her mind.
"I think the gray is better for the morning; then I can wear the big chip
hat."
I fished up the gray. It was light, almost silvery, and had white spots on
it.

"Jack, dear," she said, coming out with her hair tucked up in a knot,
drawing the bath robe up to her chin with both hands, "I think that the
white cloth would be better, and that I can wear the beret."
By this time the trunk was in a pretty mess, which amused her; but at
last I ferreted out the white cloth dress, and, refusing to listen to further
discussion, sat down on the window seat. Sweetheart enjoyed it.
"Stop telling me to hurry," she said; "I can't, if you keep saying it all
the time."
After a while she called me to fasten her corsage, which hooked with
about ten hundred hooks along the side and collar. I hated to do it, and
my finger ends stung for hours after, but, as Sweetheart very rightly
says, "When we are rich enough to have a maid you needn't," I
submitted with an air which delighted her. Her tormenting "Thank you,
Jack," was the last straw, so I calmly picked her up and carried her out,
and almost to the dining room, where I set her down just in time to
avoid the proprietor and three domestics issuing from the office.
Sweetheart was half inclined to laugh, half indignant, and wholly
scandalized. But she did nof dare say anything, for we were at the
dining-room door.
There were some people