95
I wakened to find a brilliant day awaiting me, and I was to spend it with my Italian friend who was to arrive in Geneva that morning. We hired a taxi and drove up through the mountains, listening with amusement to the very informative guide as he pointed out this estate or that peak with all the flourish of a proud possessor. He spoke alternately in English to me and in French to both of us. We viewed the Rhone and Arve Rivers from a topmost peak and marvelled how they retained their own colors of brown and turquoise blue even as they flowed far out into Lake Geneva.
It occurred to me that this fellow, this guide, seemed almost too typical of other loquacious guides I had observed, and after our return to Geneva, I said to him as we got out of the taxi, “You speak very much like an American.” He answered with embarrassment, “Well, I am kind of an American. You see, I was born in St. Louis.” Unfortunately I could not repeat this to my escort in French accurately enough for his full appreciation.
During my stay in Geneva, remembering that Mr. Harding had assigned Angela Arnold’s husband to a post in Switzerland, and that they were supposed to be living in Geneva then, I endeavored to locate Angela. I could not remember her husband’s name, however, and the American consul with whom I talked over the telephone said there were so many attaches there that it would be almost impossible to locate them unless I could definitely identify them by the husband’s surname. So I did not get to see her. The following day we all returned to Dijon.