The docks at Le Havre are significantly less crowded than the docks back home. Nearly all the passengers shuffle the same way we do toward the singular train platform nestled among fish sellers and terra-cotta-hued plaster buildings.

The train doesn’t feel all that different from the boat. There’s the same rocking, the same people. The count and countess are in the compartment next to us, but I wish it were the widows. They’d be more fun to eavesdrop on.

On plush red velvet seats, we settle in for the hour-long journey into Paris.

Maxine buys us lemonades and roasted nuts from the snack trolley, and I sit in silence, my face pressed against the cool glass, and watch the world go by.

The trees are different here, spindly and twisting up to the sky, nothing like the squat, sweeping oaks from back home.

“If that was the Versailles of the Atlantic, is this the Versailles of the Rails?” Lena asks from across the private train car, looking in amusement at the fine carved mahogany paneling.

“Ha ha,” Maxine deadpans, flipping a page of her Vogue. She flashes us the page, a dapper-looking man wearing a waistcoat and a top hat. “Do you think this would suit me?”

“The hat?” I clarify at the same time Lena says, “No.”

Maxine rips the page out, crumples it into a ball, and throws it at her. Lena tilts her head back and closes her eyes, drifting off to sleep. I allow the rocking of the train to bang my head steadily against the glass.

It’s a relief when the train finally pulls into the Paris station, but my sense of balance is still off from the incessant rocking of the ship, and the ground still seems to tilt and sway beneath me.

Maxine guides us through the bustling train station to a sweeping archway where a man is waiting in a fine suit.

“Miss DuPre, a pleasure to have you home,” he greets her in accented English.

“Bonjour, Pierre.” She passes him the hatbox in her hand and gestures to us. “Mes amies, Lena et Frances.”

The man, Pierre, tips his hat to us and flashes a smile. His blue eyes are weatherworn and kind.

“Pierre has worked for my family since I was small,” she explains to us as we’re led out of the station and to a waiting shiny-black Model T.

I nearly gasp at the sight of it, Paris in all its glory. It’s like something out of a fairy tale, wide city blocks lined with buildings of white limestone, carved with angels on the eaves, wooden shutters flung open to let the early summer in.

The buildings aren’t tall like in New York, and it makes the sky look bigger, stretching over the city.

“You coming?” Maxine calls over her shoulder.

“Yes!” I sputter, tripping over my own traveling shoes to hop after them into the automobile.