where it was cooler. When we finished the beer I stood up. “We have to go,” I said.
“You come back tonight all right? Fontan he’s going to have the wine.”
“We’ll come back before we go away.”
“You go away?”
“Yes. We have to leave in the morning.”
“That’s too bad you go away. You come tonight. Fontan will have the wine. We’ll make a fête before you go.”
“We’ll come before we go.”
But that afternoon there were telegrams to send, the car to be gone over—a tire had been cut by a stone and needed vulcanizing—and, without the car, I walked into the town, doing things that had to be done before we could go. When it was supper-time I was too tired to go out. We did not want a foreign language. All we wanted was to go early to bed.
As I lay in bed before I went to sleep, with all the things of the summer piled around ready to be packed, the windows open and the air coming in cool from the mountains, I thought it was a shame not to have gone to Fontan’s—but in a little while I was asleep. The next day we were busy all morning packing and ending the summer. We had lunch and were ready to start by two o’clock.
“We must go and say good-by to the Fontans,” I said.
“Yes, we must.”
“I’m afraid they expected us last night.”
“I suppose we could have gone.”
“I wish we’d gone.”
We said good-by to the man at the desk at the hotel, and to Larry and our other friends in the town, and then drove out to Fontan’s. Both Monsieur and Madame were there. They were glad to see us. Fontan looked old and tired.
“We thought you would come last night,” Madame Fontan said. “Fontan had three bottles of wine. When you did not come he drank it all up.”
