All the way to Newhaven in the train, my poor little week-end time-table had seemed so lovely. Saturday, 4 P.M., arrive at the Cheval d'Or; 4.15 P.M., a bath and change; 5 P.M., a peep into St. Jacques and _une petite promenade_ along the front; 6.30 P.M., a short and early dinner, with a _sole Normande_, a _caneton Rouennais_, a bit of Neufchatel cheese, some wild strawberries, and a broad-based, high-soaring, unemptiable carafe of cider; 8 P.M., this diary (with, I devoutly hoped, not a word in it about Susan); 9 P.M., bed; Sunday, a little dash upon Rouen, a run round the churches, and back for seven-o'clock dinner at the Cheval d'Or; Monday, 8.30 A.M., depart for Sainte Véronique. But now the dream was shattered. The gilt was off the Cheval d'Or, and he was the one horse in all France that I might not mount.
I sat and debated whether it would be best to go to one of the other Dieppe hotels, sending the Cheval d'Or the price of the rooms by post, or to climb straight into the Paris train and spend the night in Rouen. At last I decided that we had better stick to Dieppe and go to the Astor, where their idea of welcoming you to Normandy is to try and make you believe you're at the Carlton, and where you can't drink cider without feeling that you're a perfect monster of parsimony. It was maddening. But it had to be faced.
He drained the last drop of his something-and-soda and strode out quickly with his bag--doubtless to entrench himself in good time at the Cheval d'Or. When He was safely off the premises, I went to the platform door to find a porter. Behind the excited crowd of officials who implore you to take your seat for Paris, I espied their rivals--that silent band, with the names of hotels gilt-lettered on their caps, whose dumb eloquence pleads with you to remain in Dieppe. I had almost caught the "Astor" man's eye, when a face I dimly remembered pushed itself into sight. The face looked at me from under a cap inscribed "Hôtel du Cheval d'Or." It was Pierre, that best of porters. He knew me. I was too late.
I've learned a lesson and drawn a moral. Whenever I've forgotten, or been too lazy, to write beforehand to an hotel, I never once remember coming to the smallest harm. But whenever I've been a paragon of methodicalness and have given two or three days' notice, how often haven't I found myself shoved away into a back room or an annexe? If only I hadn't wired to the Cheval d'Or last night, I could have tossed Pierre a pleasant look and have gone off to the Astor, leaving Ruddington all alone in his glory.