He arrived in Paris on a Wednesday evening, and took a room in a maison meublée of the Rue de Sèze. Every inexperienced traveller in Paris has a friend who knows a lodging⁴ in Paris which he alleges⁵ is better and cheaper than any other lodging—and which is not. The house in the Rue de Sèze was the economical paradise of Buckingham Smith, whom George had encountered again at the Buckingham Smith exhibition. Buckingham Smith, with over half his pictures bearing the red seal that indicates 'Sold,' felt justified⁶ in posing to the younger George as a cosmopolitan⁷ expert—especially as his opinions on modern French art were changing. George spent three solitary⁸ and dejected days in Paris, affecting an interest in museums and architecture and French opera, and committing follies⁹. Near the end of the third day, a Saturday, he suddenly sent a threepenny express note to Lois Ingram. He would have telephoned had he dared to use the French telephone. On Sunday morning, an aproned valet having informed him that Monsieur was demanded at the telephone, he had to use the telephone. Lois told him that he must come to lunch, and that afterwards he would be escorted to the races. Dejection was instantly transformed into a gay excitation. Proud of having spoken through a French telephone, he began to conceive romantically the interior of a Paris home—he had seen

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