Paris: The Novel

schoolmaster’s never going to marry me.”
    “You never know. I could talk to him.”
    “That may not help.”
    She was determined to decide for herself, but she couldn’t deny that her aunt was right. Thomas might be as much as she could hope for, but he was no safe haven.
    And then there was his family. Better than many in the Maquis, she supposed, but she hadn’t felt any particular kinship with them. She’d probably finish up working to support them.
    As for his little brother Luc … There was something about young Luc that she didn’t like. She wasn’t sure what it was, but she didn’t trust him.
    So what did that leave? Only the fact that when she felt Thomas’s strong arm around her, she was at peace. That he was attentive to her, and that she was happy in his company. That he loved her, and that she liked the way his body was made, and the scent of it. And that she knew he was a good man. And that therefore, taking all these things together, she supposed that in a modest way she loved him. And that sometimes she yearned for him. But that at other times she could almost forget him.
    So she still didn’t know what to do, and she wished that she did, because she didn’t like to be dishonest with him. And perhaps that was why, recently, she had somehow avoided him.
    During April, she’d seen him several times, but only in the evenings after her work. She hadn’t been out with him at a weekend. There had been things to do helping Aunt Adeline, of course, but she knew she could have made time for him if she’d really wanted to.
    He’d asked her to the World’s Fair. But she had an easy excuse for putting that off. She wanted to go up the tower. “And I’m not walking,” she said. “I want to take the elevator.” The tower had finally opened to the public three days ago, but the elevators still weren’t fully operational, and probably wouldn’t be for another three weeks. And by that time …
    For by the start of May it seemed to her that, if it hadn’t been for the tickets to the opening of the Wild West show, which she really wanted to see, she might have broken with Thomas already.
    Thomas came to pick her up at noon. Soon, they were walking down the avenue de la Grande-Armée westward toward Neuilly. Thomas waswearing his new suit that he was proud of. She was wearing a summer dress with a silk shawl that Aunt Adeline had found for her. Thomas offered her his arm, and she put her hand through it. She liked walking with him like that.
    At the bottom of the avenue where it reached the Bois de Boulogne they turned right, and soon came to the part of Neuilly that was still open ground. In the middle of this open space stood the remains of an old fort, and here Buffalo Bill had built his camp.
    There were two hundred tents, and big corrals for the horses and the shaggy buffalo—which had caused a sensation when they were led down the road from the railway station to the camp. And in the center of it all were the splendid arena and a newly constructed grandstand that would hold fifteen thousand spectators.
    “Look at the crowd,” said Thomas. They were early, but already a sea of people was flowing through the entrance. And it wasn’t just any crowd.
    The president of France, Monsieur Carnot, and his wife were to be present. Royalty and ambassadors, generals and aristocrats, distinguished visitors from all over the world, including a large party of visiting Americans—the stands were packed. Everyone who was anyone was there. And so was Thomas Gascon.
    It amused him that he and Édith were there and that Monsieur Ney and Hortense were not.
    And all that packed crowd—except of course the Americans—were united by two things. They were all excited to be there. And they were not quite sure what the show was about.
    The opening of the show was clear enough. It was a huge parade around the ring of all the colorful cast. Cowboys and cowgirls with whirling lassoes, magnificent Indians in feathers and warpaint, Mexicans, Canadian trappers—French Canadians, of course—with their huskies, all that was brave and dashing and exotic in the huge, wild North American spaces. The crowd was delighted. Then came a single young lady, Annie Oakley, with her guns. The crowd clapped politely, not knowing much about her. And finally, the hero of the West, the greatest showman of them all, Buffalo Bill himself in his buckskins and big cowboy hat, his hair flowing behind him, entered at a gallop,