XXV
Bernard prepared for Gordon's arrival in Paris, which, according to his letter, would take place in a few days. He was not intending to stop in England; Blanche desired to proceed immediately to the French capital, to confer with her tailor, after which it was probable that they would go to Italy, or to the East, for the winter. "I have given her a choice of Rome or the Nile," said Gordon, "but she tells me she doesn't care a fig where we go." I say that Bernard prepared to receive his friends, and I mean that he prepared morally or even intellectually. Materially speaking, he could simply hold himself in readiness to engage an apartment at an hotel and to go to meet them at the station. He expected to hear from Gordon as soon as this interesting trio should arrive in England, but the first notification he received came from a Parisian hotel. It reached him in the shape of a hasty note, in the morning, shortly before lunch, and was to the effect that his friends had alighted in the Rue de la Paix the night before.
"We were tired, and I have slept late," Gordon wrote; "otherwise you should have heard from me earlier. Come to lunch, if possible. I want extremely to see you."
Bernard, of course, made a point of going to lunch. In as short a time as possible he found him-
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