A thread of nodding lanterns, stretched from bow to stern, lighted them through a maze of waxen lilies on the amethyst lagoon.
This would never happen again, and she trailed her finger in the darkening water to mark her passage while the oarlocks creaked. At the boathouse she glanced apprehensively at the pebble road. He'll want to walk all that distance again, but she'd be with him that much longer.
"I think you should have at least one carriage ride through the Bois."
"Toot-foot," encouraged a taxi.
The carriage branched off below the Arch in a different direction from the one they had walked last night. Less romantic streets. He was in a hurry to get her back to the hotel, Lucy thought bleakly.
"Toot-toot," confirmed a petulant taxi.
"What's that Greek temple?"
"A church—the Madeleine. We turn here at the rue Royale. You'll be at your hotel in a few minutes." It seemed to him essential to get it over quickly.
She sat looking glumly ahead. Why look right and left at a lot of old dark buildings?
"Toot-toot!" complained a taxi because their carriage was in its path.
There was the same flurry at the Ritz entrance.
"Thank you for a lovely day. I suppose I won't see you again?" She repeated the words of last night.
"You'll probably be busy with dressmakers tomorrow, but I'll phone and say goodbye on the chance you're in."
"What a beautiful night!" she said desperately. "I hate to go in. What's that street down there?"
"The rue de la Paix."
"Imagine, and right on my corner. It looks so small and unimportant."
He smiled. Suddenly he didn't want to leave her. It might be my last glimpse of her, he thought.
"Why not have a look? We can walk along the Grands Boulevards and dine at a restaurant where Offenbach, Lautrec, Edward the Seventh when he was Prince of Wales, and Cleo de Merode used to eat."
"Cleo de Merode! I have her necklace. I'd love to go but you must let me pay, I have a big roll of francs I haven't spent."
"We can go into that later. That's the Opéra straight ahead."
