Miss Ruck looked at me a moment."Well, you had better not come home," she said."No one will speak to you.""Were you born in these countries?" I asked of her companion.
"Oh, no; I came to Europe when I was a small child.But I remember America a little, and it seems delightful.""Wait till you see it again.It's just too lovely," said Miss Sophy.
"It's the grandest country in the world," I added.
Miss Ruck began to toss her head."Come away, my dear," she said.
"If there's a creature I despise it's a man that tries to say funny things about his own country.""Don't you think one can be tired of Europe?" Aurora asked, lingering.
"Possibly--after many years."
"Father was tired of it after three weeks," said Miss Ruck.
"I have been here sixteen years," her friend went on, looking at me with a charming intentness, as if she had a purpose in speaking."It used to be for my education.I don't know what it's for now.""She's beautifully educated," said Miss Ruck."She knows four languages.""I am not very sure that I know English.""You should go to Boston!" cried Miss Sophy."They speak splendidly in Boston.""C'est mon reve," said Aurora, still looking at me.
"Have you been all over Europe," I asked--"in all the different countries?"She hesitated a moment."Everywhere that there's a pension.Mamma is devoted to pensions.We have lived, at one time or another, in every pension in Europe.""Well, I should think you had seen about enough," said Miss Ruck.
"It's a delightful way of seeing Europe," Aurora rejoined, with her brilliant smile."You may imagine how it has attached me to the different countries.I have such charming souvenirs! There is a pension awaiting us now at Dresden,--eight francs a day, without wine.That's rather dear.Mamma means to make them give us wine.
Mamma is a great authority on pensions; she is known, that way, all over Europe.Last winter we were in Italy, and she discovered one at Piacenza,--four francs a day.We made economies.""Your mother doesn't seem to mingle much," observed Miss Ruck, glancing through the window at the scholastic attitude of Mrs.
Church.
"No, she doesn't mingle, except in the native society.Though she lives in pensions, she detests them.""Why does she live in them, then?" asked Miss Sophy, rather resentfully.
"Oh, because we are so poor; it's the cheapest way to live.We have tried having a cook, but the cook always steals.Mamma used to set me to watch her; that's the way I passed my jeunesse--my belle jeunesse.We are frightfully poor," the young girl went on, with the same strange frankness--a curious mixture of girlish grace and conscious cynicism."Nous n'avons pas le sou.That's one of the reasons we don't go back to America; mamma says we can't afford to live there.""Well, any one can see that you're an American girl," Miss Ruck remarked, in a consolatory manner."I can tell an American girl a mile off.You've got the American style.""I'm afraid I haven't the American toilette," said Aurora, looking at the other's superior splendour.
"Well, your dress was cut in France; any one can see that.""Yes," said Aurora, with a laugh, "my dress was cut in France--at Avranches.""Well, you've got a lovely figure, any way," pursued her companion.
"Ah," said the young girl, "at Avranches, too, my figure was admired." And she looked at me askance, with a certain coquetry.
But I was an innocent youth, and I only looked back at her, wondering.She was a great deal nicer than Miss Ruck, and yet Miss Ruck would not have said that."I try to be like an American girl,"she continued; "I do my best, though mamma doesn't at all encourage it.I am very patriotic.I try to copy them, though mamma has brought me up a la francaise; that is, as much as one can in pensions.For instance, I have never been out of the house without mamma; oh, never, never.But sometimes I despair; American girls are so wonderfully frank.I can't be frank, like that.I am always afraid.But I do what I can, as you see.Excusez du peu!"I thought this young lady at least as outspoken as most of her unexpatriated sisters; there was something almost comical in her despondency.But she had by no means caught, as it seemed to me, the American tone.Whatever her tone was, however, it had a fascination;there was something dainty about it, and yet it was decidedly audacious.
The young ladies began to stroll about the garden again, and Ienjoyed their society until M.Pigeonneau's festival came to an end.