The Well of Loneliness

It was Jonathan Brockett who had recommended the little hotel in the Rue St. Roch, and when Stephen and Puddle arrived one evening that June, feeling rather tired and dejected, they found their sitting-room bright with roses -- roses for Puddle -- and on the table two boxes of Turkish cigarettes for Stephen. Brockett, they learnt, had ordered these things by writing specially from London.

Barely had they been in Paris a week, when Jonathan Brockett turned up in person: "Hallo, my dears, I've come over to see you. Everything all right? Are you being looked after? " He sat down in the only comfortable chair and proceeded to make himself charming to Puddle. It seemed that his flat in Paris being let, he had tried to get rooms at their hotel but had failed, so had gone instead to the Meurice. "But I'm not going to take you to lunch there," he told them, "the weather's too fine, we'll go to Versailles. Stephen, ring up and order your car, there's a darling! By the way, how is Burton getting on? Does he remember to keep to the right and to pass on the left? " His voice sounded anxious. Stephen reassured him good-humouredly, she knew that he was apt to be nervous in motors.