I don’t know that I ought to tell you this—even you, you old woofly-bear darling with your kind, decent, sympathetic mind might possibly misunderstand for, with all your virtues, after all you do have an American way of looking at things, but I’m afraid some gossip might come to you some day and I want you to understand. Needless to say, our relations are as innocent as though we were a boy and girl of eight and I do have such a nice happy clean time with him—Sam, Arnold drives a car even faster than you do, my heart almost stopped yesterday when he was driving 118 kilometers an hour, but he’s such a superb driver that I usually feel quite safe. Now I must hurry and dress. Bless you. I hope you’re well and happy. Best love to Emily and Harry.
That afternoon he telephoned to the president of the Sans Souci Company that he was summoned abroad and could decide nothing for several months. He telegraphed to New York for a steamer reservation. He dashed to Emily, to Tub, to Hazzard, and said goodbye. But it was a week before he could sail, and meantime another letter had come from Fran—from Deauville:
Yes, here I am, and I don’t like it much. This place is very gay but a little icky; lots of nice people but also dreadful ones, profiteers giving cocktail parties, racetrack touts infesting the lounge. I wish I’d gone to the Lido instead. Perhaps I will. See here now, Samivel. In your letter, written to me at Vevey but received since I left, you said that you hoped I would, as you expressed it, “lay low” after my winter in Paris and “get to bed early for a while.” I don’t suppose you meant to be unpleasant but you couldn’t realize how jumpy and hurt and bewildered I was after the horrible Pénable affair, like a lost child, and how your scolding would hurt me. Am I to spend the rest of my life growing old as gracefully and as fast as I can, which is apparently your ideal!
You talk as though I were some hell-raising flapper instead of a woman of the world who likes civilized amusements. There! I’m sure you didn’t mean to be scolding, but can’t you understand how it might hit me when I was in a very high-strung condition? Really, Sam, you must be a little more thoughtful! Do try to use a little imagination, now and then! Now that’s off my chest and shall we just forget it? Only I must say—Sam, you may think I’m unjust, but really it was essentially your fault that I ever had the De Pénable trouble. If you hadn’t insisted on running back to America for your class reunion, which wasn’t so awfully necessary, after all, if you had stuck by me so that I wasn’t in the anomalous and almost humiliating position of being without a husband, just like a lone adventuress, the De Pénable woman would never have dared act as though I were an adventuress and have turned on me the way she did. I hope you’ll understand that I mean this only in the kindest and sweetest way, and we are, after all, aren’t we, one of the few married couples who understand each other so well that we can be frank, and next time I hope you’ll try to remember. There, that’s over, and now for the news.
Yes, says the hussy defiantly, Arnold Israel is here with me, that is, as I’m sure you’ll understand, he is in no sense with me, but he’s here in Deauville. At first I wouldn’t come along, but he was so thoughtful, so sweet, so understanding. He dug up somehow—I don’t know how he does these things but he has what one might call the spiritual as well as the financial Midas touch, do you know that I’ve just discovered that while I thought he was merely loafing while he was away from his beastly old jute and hemp business, here in Europe, he’s made about $40,000 by gambling in exchange and buying and selling a, well, a reasonably authentic Rembrandt and he wanted to give me some pearls but of course I wouldn’t let him, but I’m drifting away from the thread of my story.
He found out at Stresa that a most respectable old Philadelphia couple, real Rittenhouse Square sort only fond of gaiety, were here, and he had them invite me to come here under their wing, which made it all right and prevents any of the nasty kind of gossip such as a beast like the De Pénable woman loves. After all, I thought, I’m silly about not coming with him. Sam will never misunderstand, he has imagination, and besides, I realized, I’m not a young flittergibbet or
