"But, after all, it's very easy to be kind. It's much easier to be kind
if you are American and pink than if you are French and anxious."
Another difference between the two nations struck her.
"The Americans treat me as if I were an amusing child. The French, no
matter how peculiar their advances, always, always as a woman."
Next morning, when she got down to breakfast at eight, she found that
the three Frenchmen had already gone out about their work.
"Perhaps I shall get home to-night, after all," she prayed. She sat in
the hotel and watched the Americans, or wandered about the little town
until eleven. The affair with the cigars was suitably arranged. The hall
was nearly empty when she went in, and the few men who stood about in it
did not disarm her with special kindness. On getting back to the hotel
she found the Bearskin pushing breathlessly and anxiously through the
glass doors.
"Monsieur Raudel has left his cigarettes in his bedroom," he said,
"unlocked up. He is anxious so I have come back."
"Well, tell him that if he--tell him quite as a joke, you know--that if
I can get home--"
(Something in his little blue eye shone sympathetically, and she leant
towards him.) "Well, I'll tell _you_! There is a dance to-night in Metz,
and I am asked. And tell him that I have bought two boxes of cigars
for him!"
The Bearskin, enchanted, promised to do his best.
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