Elinor was in Paris about this time. To my great joy, she had come to pass the autumn, and perhaps the winter too; and she was very anxious that I should show her something of the seamy side of life here. She had taken lodgings on the other—the right and wrong—bank of the river; and every afternoon, my day’s work done, I would join her there, and we would go off together for little excursions into Bohemia. I happened to be extraordinarily flush for the moment; I had nearly two hundred pounds of ready money; and this was a help. Of course I took her to the Moulin Rouge, which disgusted her, as I had warned her that it would; and to the Chat Noir, which amused her; and I was fortunate enough to get two seats for a performance at the Théâtre Libre, which both amused and disgusted her at once; and I introduced her to the jerry-built splendours of Bullier; and we took long delightful walks together in the Luxembourg, where she would feed the sparrows with crumbs of unnutritious bread; and we lunched, dined, and supped together in an infinite number of droll restaurants; and now and then we went slumming in the far north, or east, or south; and Pousset’s knew us, and Vachette’s; and sometimes,’ for the fun or the convenience of the thing, we would drop in among the demi-gomme of the Café de la Paix: and she would have been altogether happy and contented save for a single unfulfilled desire. She wanted to make acquaintance with some member of the sisterhood of Sainte Grisette; she wanted, as a literary woman, to see what such an one would be like; to convince herself whether or not they were as black as I had painted them, for I had painted them very black indeed.
“Well,” I said at last, “you’ll be sorry for it, but since you won’t take no for an answer, I’ll see what can be done.”
Then one afternoon I was waiting for her by appointment, in that very Café de la Paix, when whom should I see enter, and ensconce themselves in a back room, but my neighbour Zizi, and her friend of the ribbons, Madame Germaine. “When Elinor arrives,” I thought, “and if her heart is still set on that sort of thing, I will introduce Zizi to her: for Zizi is as nearly innocuous as a microbe of her variety very well can be.” Elinor arrived a moment later: beautiful, strong, gracious, and pure as a May morning: and I proposed the measure to her; and her instant decision was, “Oh, yes, by all means.” So she and I penetrated into the backroom, and took the table next to Zizi’s; and presently Zizi gave me a sly little covert glance and smile; and therewith I invited her and her companion to come and sit with us.