Alexina for all her ramifications, some of them too deep, had a light and
feminine side. During the following fortnight she gave it full rein; she
was absorbed, almost happy. She spent quite recklessly and after the years
of economy and self-denial this alone gave her an intense satisfaction. In
addition to her income forwarded by Judge Lawton, who had charge of her
affairs, her brother Ballinger, who was as fond of her as of his own
children, and very proud of her--she had received two decorations--sent her
a large check with the mandate to spend it on herself.
IV
Even so, she was not always in the shops and the dressmakers' ateliers. She
found much amusement in strolling up and down the arcades of the Rue de
Rivoli, watching the odd throngs at which Paris herself seemed, to bend her
head and stare.
Some poet had called Paris the mistress of Europe. She looked like an old
trollop. She was dirty and dreary, unpainted and unwashed. The rain
was almost incessant and the shop windows were soon denuded of the few
attractive novelties scrambled together to meet the sudden demand after the
long drought.
But under the long arcades the curious sauntering throngs were sheltered
from the rain and found all things in Paris novel. Men in the American
khaki, from generals to striplings, were there by the hundred; endless
streams of young women in the uniform of the Red Cross, the Y.
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