Hand-to-mouth is a bad principle when you have a growing
child.'
After a little pause she went on, 'So my problem is, first, how to earn
our livelihood, and secondly, how to make something like a home for
Camille, something better than this tobacco-smoky, absinthe-scented
atmosphere of the Latin Quarter. And I can see only one way of
accomplishing the two things. You will smile--but I have considered it
from every point of view. I have examined myself, my own capabilities.
I have weighed all the chances. I wish to take a flat, in another
quarter of the town, near the Etoile or the Parc Monceau, and--open a
_pension_. There is my plan.'
I had a much simpler and pleasanter plan of my own, but of that, as I
knew, she would hear nothing. I did not smile at hers, however; though
I confess it was not easy to imagine madcap Nina in the role of a
landlady, regulating the accounts and presiding at the table of a
boarding-house. I can't pretend that I believed there was the
slightest likelihood of her filling it with success. But I said
nothing to discourage her; and the fact that she is rich to-day proves
how little I divined the resources of her character. For the
boarding-house she kept was an exceedingly good boarding-house; she
showed herself the most practical of mistresses; and she prospered
amazingly.
Pages:
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50