Part 47 (1/2)
Miss Ruck pounced straight. ”Then you had better not come home. We know how to treat your sort.”
”Were you born in these countries?” I asked of Aurora Church.
”Oh no-I came to Europe 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 Ruck.
”The grandest country in all the world,” I added.
Miss Ruck began to toss her head. ”Come away, my dear. If there's a creature I despise it's a man who tries to say funny things about his own country.”
But Aurora lingered while she all appealingly put it to me. ”Don't you think one can be tired of Europe?”
”Well-as one may be tired of life.”
”Tired of the life?” cried Miss Ruck. ”Father was tired of it after three weeks.”
”I've been here sixteen years,” her friend went on, looking at me as for some charming intelligence. ”It used to be for my education. I don't know what it's for now.”
”She's beautifully educated,” Miss Ruck guaranteed. ”She knows four languages.”
”I'm not very sure I know Englis.h.!.+”
”You should go to Boston!” said our companion. ”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 consulted her reminiscences. ”Everywhere you can find a pension.
Mamma's devoted to pensions. We've lived at one time or another in every pension in Europe-say at some five or six hundred.”
”Well, I should think you had seen about enough!” Miss Ruck exhaled.
”It's a delightful way of seeing Europe”-our friend rose to a bright high irony. ”You may imagine how it has attached me to the different countries. I have such charming souvenirs! There's a pension awaiting us now at Dresden-eight francs a day, without wine. That's so much beyond our mark that mamma means to make them give us wine. Mamma's a great authority on pensions; she's 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, who had glanced through the window at Mrs. Church's concentration.
”No, she doesn't mingle, except in the native society. Though she lives in pensions she detests our vulgar life.”
”'Vulgar'?” cried Miss Ruck. ”Why then does she skimp so?” This young woman had clearly no other notion of vulgarity.
”Oh because we're so poor; it's the cheapest way to live. We've tried having a cook, but the cook always steals. Mamma used to set me to watch her; that's the way I pa.s.sed my jeunesse-my belle jeunesse. We're frightfully poor,” she 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 could never 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 natural American style.”
”I'm afraid I haven't the natural American clothes,” said Aurora in tribute to the other's splendour.
”Well, your dress was cut in France; any one can see that.”
”Yes,” our young lady laughed, ”my dress was cut in France-at Avranches.”