ever dream of such a thing. But she could be his housekeeper, his bonne; they could have again, between them, the old tongue, the old ways, the memories of old. She would not have to put up any longer with Mrs. Métrailleur and the terrible Susy; he could escape from Mrs. Brown. Nanette could make him omelettes, like his mother’s; he could eat them out of doors, within the leafy ash-tree arbour, as they used to eat at Home. . . Ah, Home! Home was gone, vanished, dead—surviving only in his brain—and in hers. . . . Well, one must just make the best of where one was; there would be something to make the best of, now. Why, she could make him coffee! Swiss coffee to mingle with New Zealand milk. . . . Eh, and what if, at the same time, one could mingle with the insipidity of the present something of the poetry, the aroma, of the beloved past?
Café au lait, properly prepared, is delicious. . . .
Poor Mrs. Brown, watching with long-suffering Philippe’s tardy progress down the street, had presently the additional annoyance of seeing him, when he had at last got within two yards of her gate, suddenly cross the road, and walk into young Bossu’s, with a step grown wonderfully firm.
