"Oh, Paris! Paris!" she sighed, opening her eyes and pursing her lips
in order to express her admiration when she was speaking alone to the
Argentinian. "How I should love to go there!"

And in order that he might feel free to tell her things about Paris, she
permitted herself certain confidences about the pleasures of Berlin, but
with a blushing modesty, admitting in advance that in the world there
was more--much more--that she wished to become acquainted with.

While pacing around the Chapelle Expiatoire, Julio recalled with a
certain remorse the wife of Counsellor Erckmann. He who had made the
trip to America for a woman's sake, in order to collect money and marry
her! Then he immediately began making excuses for his conduct. Nobody
was going to know. Furthermore he did not pretend to be an ascetic, and
Bertha Erckmann was certainly a tempting adventure in mid ocean. Upon
recalling her, his imagination always saw a race horse--large, spare,
roan colored, and with a long stride. She was an up-to-date German who
admitted no defect in her country except the excessive weight of its
women, combating in her person this national menace with every known
system of dieting. For her every meal was a species of torment, and
the procession of bocks in the smoking room a tantalizing agony.
The slenderness achieved and maintained by will power only made more
prominent the size of her frame, the powerful skeleton with heavy jaws
and large teeth, strong and dazzling, which perhaps suggested Desnoyers'
disrespectful comparison. "She is thin, but enormous, nevertheless!" was
always his conclusion.

But then, he considered her, notwithstanding, the most distinguished
woman on board--distinguished for the sea--elegant in the style of