 CHAPTER I. THERE IS A LETTER FOR UMESU, SAID THE CORCIERGE OF THE OITILDU CELAY EDILACOS. HE WAS A SHABBY CORCIERGE, SHARING IN THE TARNISH OF THE SHABBY HOTEL, WHICH, FOR THE INFORMATION OF THOSE FORTUNATE ONES OWNING OVER THE RITS, AND THE MOURISS, AND OTHER SUCH LIKE PALACES, IS SITUATED IN THE UNIROSTROCRATIC NOBODE OF THE ALLE CENTRAL. AS IT BEARS THE PARIS BUS MARK, IT MUST BE THE ONE WHICH M. IS EXPECTING, SAID HE, DETACHING IT FROM THE TIP ON THE KEYBOARD. YOU'RE PERFECTLY RIGHT, SAID MARTEN OVERSURE, I RECONIZE THE HANDWRITING. The young Englishman sat on the worn cane seat in the little vestibule, and read his letter. It ran. Dear Martin, I've been away, otherwise I should have answered your note sooner. I'm delighted you're in this godforsaken city, but what brought you here in August? Heaven only knows. We must meet at once. I can't ask you to my abode because I have only one room, one chair, and a bed, and you will be shocked to sit on the chair when I sat on the bed, or to sit on the bed when I sat on the chair. And I couldn't offer you anything but a cigarette. Capral, I court-fussued le paquet, and the fag end of a bottle of grenadine syrup and water. Say let us dine together at the place where I can take such meals as I can afford. Au pétit connoisseur, or as the snob of a proprietor yearns to call it, the restaurant du four. It's a beast of a whole in the roue-barret, off the roue-bonne-part, but I don't think either of us could run to the café de Paris, or paillards, and we'll have it all to ourselves. Meet me there at seven. You're sincerely Corinna Hastings. Martin Auvershaw rose and addressed the corciage. Where is the roue-bonne-part? The concierge informed him. I'm going to dine with a lady at the restaurant called at the pétit cornoisseur. Do you think I'd better wear evening dress? The corciage was perplexed. The majority of the British frequenters of the hotel, when they did not dine in the gangs at the table-dote, went out to dinner in flannels or knicker-bockers and wore cloth caps, and looked upon the language of the country as an incomprehensible joke. But here was a young Englishman of a puzzling type, who spoke perfect French with a strange purity of accent, in spite of his abysmal ignorance of Paris, and talked about dressing for dinner. Êve-vous l'as, M. Boca-Den, said he. M. Boca-Den, the manager of fat Curricie-Provissale, who sat over a ledger in the cramped bureau, leaned back in his chair and threw out his hands. Êhending the rest of the little restaurant of the coutier? No. They would look at you through the windows. There would be a crowd. It would be enough fair for the police. Martin Evertshire smiled. ÊMerci, M. Boca-Den, said he. But as you may have already guessed, I am new to Paris and Paris ways. ÊOh, that doesn't matter, replied M. Boca-Den graciously. Paris isn't France. Paris isn't France. We have the South. I am from Nîmes. Care that for Paris? He snapped his fingers. ÊM. Knows the midi? ÊIt is my first visit to France, said Martin. ÊMais comment-on, que vous speak French like a Frenchman? ÊMy mother was a Swiss, replied Martin ingenuously, and I lived all my boyhood in Switzerland in the cante-au-de-voe. French is my mother tongue, and I have been teaching it in England ever since. ÊA-ha, M. Ries Professeur? ÊM. Boca-Den asked politely. ÊYes, Professeur. ÊYes, Professeur, said Martin, conscious for the first time in his life of the absurd dignity of the French title. It appealed to a latent sense of humour, and he smiled wryly. ÊYes, he was a professor, had been for the last ten years at Margetts Universal College Hickney Heath, a professor engaged in cramming large classes of tradesmen's children, both youths and maidens, with such trickster's command of French grammar and vocabulary as it would enable them to obtain high marks in the stereotype examinations for humble positions in the public and semi-public services. He had reduced the necessary instruction to an exact science. He carried hundreds of pupils through their examinations with flying colours, but he never taught a single human being to speak thirty consecutive coherent words of French or to read and enjoy a French book. When he was very young and foolish, he tried to teach them the French speech as a living, organic mode of communication between human beings, with the result that his pupils' soul-strung for examinations had revolted, and the great Sardis Margett, founder of the colossal and horrible Strasbourg Goose Factory, known as Margetts Universal College, threatened to sack him if he persisted in such damnable and unprofitable imbecility. So being poor and unenterprising, and having no reason to care whether a Mr. James Bagshaw or a Miss Susan Tulliver, offered it for more than the examination moment by his teaching, he had taught the dry examination bones of the French language for ten years, and Monsieur E. Professor from Monsieur Bacchardin. Then as he turned away and began to mount the dingy stairs that led to his bedroom, it struck him that he was now only a professor in Partibus. He was no longer a member of the professorial staff of Margetts Universal College. The vast original Margett had retired with fortune, and had deservedly swollen to county magnitude, leaving, for pecuniary considerations, the tremendous educational institution to a young successor, who having adopted as his watchword the comforting chivaleth, efficiency, had dismissed all those professors who did not attain his standard of slickness. Martin Overshaw was not slick. The young apostle of efficiency had dismissed Martin Overshaw at a month's notice after ten years' service. It was though a practice gougeur, or hand-gorger of geese, had been judged obsolescent, and made it to give place to one who gorged them by Hertzian rays. The new Olympian had flashed at lance a couple of lightning questions at Martin's, and that was the end. In truth, Martin Overshaw did not emulate efficiency like the eagle-faced men in the illustrated advertisements who wanted to teach you how to become a millionaire in a fortnight. He was of mild and modest demeanour, of somewhat shy and self-deprecatory attitude, a negligible personality in any assemblage of human beings, a man, according to the blasphemous saying, of no account. Of medium heights, thin, black-haired, of shallow complexion, he regarded the world unspeculatively out of clear grey eyes that had grown rather tired. As he brushed his hair before the long strip of wardrobe mirror, it did not occur to him to criticise his reflected image. He made no claims to impeccability of costume. His linen and person were scrupulously clean, his sober suit comparatively new. But his appearance, though he knew it not, suffered from a masculine dowdiness, indefinable, yet obvious. His ill-tired cravat had an inveterate quarrel with his ill-chosen collar, and left the collar-stard exposed, and, innocent of sumptuary crime, he had out his socks to ruck over his ankles. Once he had grown a full black beard, full in the barber's sense, but ejectedly straggling to the commonplace eye of a landlady's daughter who had goaded him into a tippet flirtation. To please the nymphs long since married to a virtuous plumber who marked him himself a-called in to make his bath a going concern, he divested himself of the offending instrument, and contented himself, thenceforward, with a poor, little, undistinguished moustache. A very ordinary, unarresting young man, was Martin Overshaw. Yet, in his simple, apologetic way, exempli gratia, when he smiled with deferential confidence on the chabby concierge and the greasy monsieur bocadon, he carried with him an air of good-breeding, at his arming sensitiveness of manner which commanded the respect, contemptuous though it might have sometimes been, of course, our natures. A long, thin, straight nose with delicate nostrils, the only noticeable feature of his face, may have had something to do with his impression of refinement. Much might be written on noses. The great master of noseology, Lawrence Stern, did but broach the subject. On account, perhaps, of a long head terminating in a long blunt chin, and a mild patience of expression, he bore at Marguet's Universal College the traditional subduquet of cab-horse. The cab-horse, however, was now turned out to grass, in August Paris. He'd been there three days, and his head swam with the wonder of it. As he walked along the indicated route to the Petit Cours des Champs, in the airless dark, he felt the thrill of freedom and of romance. Down the boulevard for Sébastien Bale, he went past the tour Saint-Jacques, through the Place du Chalet, over the Porte aux Champs, and across the Île de la Cité, to the boulevard Saint-Michel, and turned to the right along the boulevard Saint- Germain, until he came to the roue-bonne-apart and his destination. It was the sweltering cool of the evening. Paris sat out of doors, at cafes, at gateways, in shirt sleeves and loosened bodices, at shop fronts, at dusty tables before humble restaurants. Pedestrians walked languidly in quest of ultimate seats. In the wide far affairs the omnibusces went their accustomed route, but motor-cabs whizzed unfrequent for lack of custom. They who could afford to rise in taxi-autos on the reef-gouche were far away in cooler regions, and the old horses of crawling fiacklers hung stagnant heads. Only the stale dregs of Paris remained in the boule-miche. He had tipped as fairyland to the emancipated professor in Partibus, who paused here and there to catch the odd phrases of his mother-tongue, which struck his ears with delicious unfamiliarity. Paris, too, that close, sultry evening, smelled of unutterable things, but to martin-overshore it was the aroma of a wonder-city. He found without difficulty the Café-Restaur du Four, whose gilded style and title eclipsed the modern sign of the Petit Cornichon prudently allowed to remain in porcelain letters on the glass of door and windows. Neither the aegis, as it were, of the poor little gherkin, and independent of the magnificent du Four establishment, was the announcement displayed, des gennées, one franc-fifty, dîners, two francs, vins, compris. The ground floor was a small café, newly decorated with fresco-panels of generously unclad ladies dropping roses on goat-legged gentlemen, symptoms of the progressive mind of the ambitious Monsieur du Four. Only two tables were occupied, by ruddy-faced provincials engaged over coffee and dominoes. To martin, standing embarrassed, came a pallid-waiter. Monsieur D'Isil, ah, l'autre restaurant? C'est au monsieur, au premier. He pointed to a meagre staircase on the left-hand side. Martin ascended and found himself alone in a ghostly-tabled room. From a doorway emerged another pallid-waiter, who also addressed him with enquiry. Monsieur D'Isil? The enquiry was modulated by the sudden subtle inflection of surprise and curiosity. I'm expecting a lady, said Martin. A bien-monsieur, à table-vertu, voici. He drew back an inviting chair. I should like this one by the window, said Martin. The room being on the entresole, the ceiling was low, and the place reeked with reproachful reminders of long-forgotten one-franc-fifty and two-franc-miles. I am sorry, monsieur, replied the waiter, but this table is reserved by a lady who takes here all her repas. Monsieur can see that it is so by the half-finished bottle of mineral water. He held up the bottle of aviar in token of his veracity. Scrawled in pencil across the label round the inscription, one was a leastings. One was a leastings, cried Martin. Why? That is the lady I'm expecting. The waiter smiled copiously. Monsieur was a friend of Miss Hastings, and then it was a different matter. Mme Moselle said she would be back to-night, and that was why her bottle of aviar had been preserved for her. She was the only one left of the enormous clientèle of the restaurant. It was a restaurant of students. In the season, not a table for the chance-comer. All engaged. The students paid so much per week, or per month, for nourishment. It really was a pension, enfin, for board without lodging. When the students were away from Paris, the restaurant was kept open at a loss, not of any great loss, for in Paris one knew how to accommodate oneself to circumstance. Good provinciales and English tourists sometimes wandered in. One always then indicated the decorations, real masterpieces, some of them. Only a day or two ago an American traveller had taken photographs. If Monsieur would deign to look around. Martin deigned. Drawings in charcoal and crayon on the December walls, caricatures, bold nudes, bars of music, bits of satiric verse, flowing signatures, or evidence of the passage of many generations of students. It amuses them, said the waiter, and gives the place a character. He was pointing out the masterpieces when a young voice by the door sang out, �Hello, Martin!� Martin turned, and met the welcoming eyes of Corinna Hastings, fair-haired, slender, neatly dressed in blue-sorged coat and skirt, and a cheap little hat, to which a long pheasant's feather gave a touch of bravado. �You're a real godsend,� she declared. �I was thinking of throwing myself into the river, and there would have been no one on the deserted bridge to fish me out again. �I am the last creature left in Paris. �I am more than lucky then to find you, Corinna,� said Martin, �for you're the only person in Paris that I know. �How did you find my address?� I went down to Wendellbury. �Then you saw them all,� said Corinna, as they took their seats at the window-table. �Father, a mother, and Bessie, and Joan, and Ada, etc., etc., down to the new baby. �The new baby makes ten of us alive. Really, he's the fourteenth. �I wonder how many more there are going to be?� �I shouldn't think there would be any more,� replied Martin gravely. Corinna burst out laughing. �What on earth can you know about it?� The satirical challenge brought a flush to Martin's sallow cheek. �What did he know, in fact, of the very intimate concerns of the reverent Thomas Hastings and his wife? �I'm afraid they find it hard to make both ends meet, as it is,� explained. �Yet, I suppose, they all flourish as usual, playing tennis and golf, and selling at bazaars, and quarrelling over curits? �They all seem pretty happy,� said Martin, �not over pleased at his companion's airy treatment of her family. �He himself, the loneliest of men, had found grateful warmth among the noisy, good-hearted crew of girls. It hurt him to hear them contemptuously spoken of. �It was the first time you went down since?� she paused. �Since my mother died, yes, she died earlier may, you know. �Must be a terrible loss to you?� said Corinna, in a softened voice. He nodded and looked out of the window at the house's opposite. That was why he was in Paris. For the last ten years ever since his father's death had hurried him away from Cambridge, after a term or two, into the wide world of struggle for a living, he had spent all his days of freedom in the little Kentish town. And these days were few. There were no long luxurifications at Margetts Universal College, such as there are at Audrey Colleges and Schools. The grind went on all the year round, and the staff had but scanty holidays. Just as they were, he passed them at his mother's tiny villa. His father had given up the chaplaincy in Switzerland, where he had married and where Martin had been born, to become vicar of Wendellbury, and Mr. Hastings was his successor. Mrs. Overshaw, with her phlegmatic temperament, had taken root in Wendellbury, and there Martin had visited her, and there he had been received into the intimacy of the Hastings family, and there she had died. Now that the little villa was empty, and Martin had no place outside London to lay his ledgered head, he'd satisfied the dream of his life and come to Paris. But even in this satisfaction there was pain. What was Paris compared with the kind touch of that vanished hand? He sighed. He was a simple soul in spite of his thirty years. The waiter rose him from his sad reflections by bringing the soup and a bottle of thin red wine. Because of food and drink and a female companion of pre-possessing exterior, Martin's face brightened. It's so jolly of them in Paris to throw him wine like this, said he. I only hope you can drink the stuff, remarked Carina. We call it d'Or de Boillor. It's a rare treat, said Martin. I can't afford wine in England, and the soup is delicious. Somehow no English landlady ever thinks of making it. England is a beast of a place, said Carina. It in your city you call Paris a gone forsaken city. Oh, so it is in August. The schools are closed. Not a studio is open. Every single student is cleared out, and there's nothing in the world to do. I've found heaps to do, said Martin. The porphyore and notre d'arm and the folie beger, said Carina, was always the Eiffel Tower. Imagine a three-years-old student finding fun on the Eiffel Tower. Then why haven't you gone home this August, as usual? Asked Martin. Carina knitted her brows. That's another story, she replied shortly. I beg your pardon, I didn't mean to be impertinent, said Martin. She laughed. Don't be silly. You think wallowing in the family trough is the height of bliss? It isn't. I would soon as starve and go back. At any rate, I should be myself, a separate entity, an individual. Oh, that's been merely a bit of clotted family. How I should hate it! But you would return to Paris in the autumn, said Martin. Again she frowned and broke her bread impatiently. All that was another story. But never mind about me. Tell me about yourself, Martin. Perhaps we may fix up something merry to do together. Pelechaise, or the tomb of Napoleon. How long are you staying in Paris? I can only afford a week. I've already had three days. I must look out for another billet as soon as possible. Another billet? A question reminded him that she was ignorant of his novel position as Professor in Partibus. He explained over the berth flamande. Carina, put in the other story, of her own trouble aside, listened sympathetically. All Paris art students must learn to do that, otherwise who would listen sympathetically to them? And all art students want a prodigious amount of sympathy, so uniquely constituted is each and genius and temperament. You can't go back to that dog's life, she said after a while. You must get a post in a good public school. Martin sighed. Why not in the kingdom of heaven, just as possible? Heads of public schools don't engage as masters men who haven't agree and have hacked out their youth in low-class institutions like Margaret. I know any too well. To have been a Margit stams me utterly with the public schools. I must find another Margit. Why don't you do something else? asked the girl. What else in the world can I do? You know very well what happens to me. My poor old father was just able to send me to Cambridge because I had a good scholarship. When he died there was nothing to supplement the sort of scholarship which wasn't enough to keep me at the university. I had to go down. My mother had nothing but my father's life insurance money, a thousand pounds, and twenty pounds a year from the Freemasons. When she wrote to her relations about her distress, what do you think my damn set of Swiss uncles and aunts and cousin centre? Two hundred francs. Eight pounds. And their all rolling money got out of the English. I had to find work at once to support us both. My only equipment was a knowledge of French. I got a post at Margit through a scholastic agency. I thought it was a miracle. When the later came except in my application I didn't sleep all night. I remained there up till a week or so ago, working twelve hours a day all the year round. I don't say I had classes for twelve hours, he admitted conscientiously. But when you see about a couple of hundred pupils a day and they all do written work which needs correcting, you'll find you have as much work in class as out of class. Last night I dreamed I was confronted with a pile of exercise books eight feet high. It's a dog's life, Corinna repeated. It is, c'est Martin. Mais couvre-tout ma peauvre corine. I'd test it as much as one couldn't test anything. If even I was a successful teacher, pas encore. But I doubt whether I have taught anybody even the régime du participe passé save as a mathematical formula. It's heart-rending. It has turned me into a brainless, soulless, heartless, bloodless machine, for a moment or two the glamour of the Parisian meal faded away. He beheld himself, as he'd woefully done in intervals between the raptures of the past few days, an anxious and despairing young man, terribly anxious to obtain another abhorred teachership yet desperate of the prospect of lifelong, ineffectual drudgery. Corinna, her ober's on the table, poising in her hand a teaspoon full of tepid strawberry ice, regarded him earnestly. I wish I were a man, she did, lad. What would you do? She swallowed the morsel of ice and dropped her spoon with a clutter. I would take knife by the throat and choke something big out of it, she cried, dramatically. Probably an ocean of tears or a sahara of despair. Said a voice from the door. Both turned sharply. The speaker was a middle-aged man of a presence at once commanding and subservient. He had a shock of grayish hair brushed back from the forehead and terminating about the collar in a fashion suggested of the late Abbe Liste. His clean, shaven face was broad and massive. The features large, eyes gray and prominent, the mouth loose and fleshy. Many lines marked it. Most noticeable of all a deep vertical furrow between the brows. He was dressed, somewhat shabbily, in a black frock coat suit, a more the white tie of the French fraternity. His voice was curiously musical. Good Lord Fortenbrass, how you startled me, exclaimed Grunner. I couldn't help it, said he, coming forward. When you turned the pitty corner shore into the state of the odion, what can I do but give you that reply? I came here to find our good friend Wittigton. Wittigton went back to England this morning, she announced. That's a pity. I have good news for him. I've arranged his little affair. He should be here to profit by it. I love impulsiveness in youth, he said, addressing himself to Martin, when it proceeds from noble order, but when it marks the feather-headed irresponsibility of the idiot, I cannot deprecate it too strongly. Challenge, as it were, for a response. I cordially agree with you, sir, said Martin. You two ought to know one another, said Grunner. This is my friend, Mr. Overshaw. Martin, let me introduce you to Mr. Daniel Fortenbrass, Marchand de Bourneur. Fortenbrass has tended a soft white hand, and holding Martin benevolently. Which, being translated into a rougher speech, said he, means, dealer in happiness. I wish you would provide me with some, said Martin laughingly. And so do I, said Grunner. Fortenbrass drew a chair to the table and sat down. My fee, said he, is five francs each, paid in advance. End of chapter one. Chapter two of The Wonderful Year by William John Locke. This Liberty Vox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Simon Evers. Chapter two. At this unexpected announcement Martin exchanged a swift glance with Corinna. She smiled, drew a five franc piece from her purse and laid it on the table. Martin, wondering, did the same. The Marchand de Bourneur unbuttoned his frock-coat and slipped the coins with a professional layer into his waistcoat pocket. Mr. Evershaw, said he, you must understand, as our charming friend Corinna Hastings, and indeed half the coutier latin, understand, that for such happiness as may be my good fortune to provide, I do not charge one penny. But having to eke out a precarious livelihood, I make a fixed charge of five francs for every consultation, no matter whether it be for ten minutes or ten hours. And for the matter of that, ten hours is not my limit. I am at your service for an indefinite period of time, provided it be continuous. That's very good indeed of you, Sir Martin. I hope you'll join us, he added, as the waiter approached with three coffee cups. No, I thank you. I've already had my after-dinner coffee. But if I might take the liberty of ordering something else, by all means, said Martin, hospitably, what would you have? Cognac, liqueur, whisky, and soda? Fortenbrass held up his hand. It was the hand of a comfortable, drowsy prelate, and smiled. I have not touched alcohol for many years. I find it blumps the delicacy of perception, which is essential to a march on to de Bonheur in the exercise of his calling. Auguste will give me a sirop de framboise à l'eau. A bie, monsieur, said Auguste. On the other hand, I shall smoke with pleasure one of your excellent English cigarettes. Thanks. Allow me. With something of the grand manner he held a lighted match to Corinna's cigarette and to Martin's. Then he blew it out a little another for his own. A superstition, said he, by way of apology. It arises out of the Russian funeral ritual in which the three altar candles are lit by the same taper. To apply the same method of illumination to three worldly things like cigars or cigarettes is regarded as an act of impiety, and hence as unlucky. For two people to dip their hands together in the same basin, without making the sign of the cross in the water, is unlucky on account of the central incident of the last supper. And, to spill the salt, as you are absentmindedly doing, Corinna, is a violation of the sacred symbol of sworn friendship. That's all very interesting, said Corinna calmly, but what are Martin Overshore and I to do to be happy? Fortinbras looked from one to the other with benevolent shrewdness and inhaled a long puff of smoke. What about our young medical student friend, Camille Fago? Corinna flushed red, as only pale blondes can flush. What do you know about Camille? she demanded. Everything and nothing. Come, come. It's my business to keep a paternal eye on you children. Where is he? Who the deuce is Camille? thought Martin. He's a bordeaux safe in the arms of his ridiculous mother. Replied Corinna, tartly. Good, good, said Fortinbras. And you, Mr. Overshore, where is the lady on whom you have set your affections? Martin laughed frankly. Heaven knows. There isn't one. The process Luantaine, perhaps, whom I've never seen. Fortinbras again looked from one to the other. This complicates matters, said he. On the other hand, perhaps it simplifies them. There being nothing common, however, to your respective roads to happiness, each case must be dealt with separately. Plus or dumb, Corinna will first expose to me the sources of her divine discontent. Proceed, Corinna. She drummed with her fingers on the table, and little wrinkles lined her young forehead. Martin pushed back his chair. Had I better go for a walk until it is my term to be interviewed? Corinna made him not to be silly. Whatever she had to say, he was welcome to hear. It would be better if he did hear it, than he might appreciate the lesser misery of his own plight. I'm an utter, hopeless failure. But she cried with an air of defiance. Good! said Fortinbras. I can't paint worth a cent. Good! said Fortinbras. That old beast Delafos says I'll never learn to draw, and I'm colour-blind. That's a brutal way of putting it, but it's more or less true. Contrugently, I can't earn my living by painting pictures no one would buy them. Then they must be very bad indeed. Well, that's it, Sigrinna. I'm done for. An old aunt died and left me a legacy of four hundred pounds. I thought I could best use it by coming to Paris to study art. I've been at it three years, and I'm as clever as when I began. I have about twenty pounds left. When it's gone, I shall have to go home to my smug and chuckling family. There are ten of us. I'm the oldest, and the youngest is three months old. I'm the oldest, and the youngest is three months old. Pretty fit, I should be, after three mayors of Paris to go back. When I was at home last, if ever I referred to an essential fact of physiological or social existence, my good mother called me immodest, and my sister's goggle-eyed and breathless besortment and corners to tell them all about it. When I tell them I know people who haven't gone through the ceremony of marriage, they think I'm giving them a peep into some awful hell of iniquity. It's a fearful joy to them. Then mother says I'm corrupting their young and innocent minds, and father mentions me at family prayers. And the way they run after any young man that happens along is sickening. I'm a pretty sure maid compared with them. Have you ever seen me running after men? You are a modern penicillier, said Fortenbras. Anyway, Wendellbury, that's my home, would drive me mad. I'll have to go away and fend for myself. Father can't give me an allowance, is as much as he can do to pay his butcher's bills. Besides, I'm not that sort. What I do, I must do on my own. But I can't do anything to get a living. I can't type right. I don't know shorthand. I can scarce his cell button on a chemisole. I'm not quite sure of my multiplication table. I couldn't add up a column of pound, shillings, and pens correctly to save my life. I play the devil with an egg if I put it into a saucepan. And if I attempted to bath a baby, I should drown it. I'm twenty-four years of age and a helpless useless failure. Fortenbras drank some of his raspberry syrup and water and lit another cigarette. And you still have twenty pounds in your pocket? Yes, say Carina, and I shall go home until I've spent the last penny. That's why I'm in Paris, drinking its august's drinks. I've already bought a third class ticket to London, available for six months. So I can get back any time without coming down on my people. That act of pucillanimous prudence, remarked Fortenbras, seems to me to be a flaw in an otherwise aberrable scheme of immediate existence. If the ravens fed an impossibly unhumorous and probably unprepossessing, disagreeable person like Elijah, surely there are doves who will minister to a sustenance of an attractive and keen-witted young woman like yourself. But that is a mere generalisation. I only wish you," said he, bending forward and paternally and delicately touching her hand. I only wish you to take heart of grace and not strangle yourself in your exhaustively drawn-up category of incompetence. The man's manner was so sympathetic, his deep voice so persuasive, a smile in his eyes so understanding, the massive lined face so illuminated by wise tenderness, that his words fell like balm on her rebellious spirit, before their significance, or want of significance, could be analysed by her intellect. The intensity of attitude and feature with her confession had been attended, relaxed into girlish ease. She laughed somewhat self-consciously and took a cigarette from the packet offered her by a silent and wandering Martin. She perked up her shapely head, and once more the cock pheasant's plume on her cheap straw hat gave her a present air of bagadoshu. Martin noticed for the first time that she had a little mutinous nose and a defiant lift of the chin above a broad white throat. He found it difficult to harmonise her appearance of comfort and efficiency with her lamentable avowal of failure. Those blue eyes, somewhat hard beneath the square brow, ought to have commanded success. Those strong and nervous hands were of just the kind to choke the great things out of life. He could not suddenly divest himself of preconceived ideas. To the dull, unaspiring drudge, Carina Hastings, leading the fabulous existence of the Paris Studios, had been invested by such mystery as surrounded the goddesses of the Gayety Theatre and the headmaster of Eaton. Martin also reflected that in her litany of woe she had omitted all reference to the medical student now in the arms of his ridiculous mother. He began to feel mildly jealous of this camille de fago, who assumed the shadow-shape of a malignant influence. Yet she did not appear to be the young woman to tolerate aggressive folly on the part of a commonplace young man. Fortenbrass himself had caught her penthecilia, queen of the Amazons. He was puzzled. What you say is very comforting and exhilarating, Fortenbrass, remarked Carina, but can't you let me have something practical? All in good time, my dear, replied Fortenbrass serenely. I have no quack nostrums to hand over at a minute's notice. Auguste, he summoned the waiter and addressed him in fluent French, marred by a Britannic accent. Give me another dose of this obscene, though harmless, beverage, and satisfy the needs of Monsieur de Mademoiselle. And after that leave us in peace. And if any one seeks to penetrate into this salamonger, say that he is engaged by a lodge of Freemasons. Here is remuneration for your prospective zeal. With impressive flourish he deposited fifteen centimes in the palm of Auguste, who bowed politely. Monsieur, said he, Monsieur de Mademoiselle, he looked inquirily at Martin, and Martin looked inquirily at Carina. I'm going to blow twenty pounds, she replied. I'll have a cummel de lassie. And I'll have the same, said Martin, though I don't at least know what it is. The waiter retired. Carina leaned across the table. You're thirty years of age, and you've lived ten years in London and have never seen cummels served with crushed ice and straws? No, replied Martin simply. What is cummel? She regarded him in wonderment. Have you ever heard of champagne? More often than I've tasted it, said Martin. This young man, remarked Carina, has seen of much of life as a squirrel in a cage. There may not be very polite, Martin, but you know it's true. Can you dance? No, said Martin. Have you ever fired off a gun? I was once in the Cambridge University rival corps, said Martin. He used a rifle, not a gun, cried Carina. Have you ever shot a bird? No, said Martin. Or caught a fish? No, said Martin. Can you play cricket, golf, ride? A bicycle, said Martin. Oh, that's something anyhow. What do you use it for? To go backwards and forwards to my work, said Martin. What do you do in the way of amusement? Nothing, said Martin with a sigh. I good fought in brass, said Carina. You have your work cut out for you. The waiter brought the drinks, and after inquiring whether they needed all the electricity, turned out most of the lights. Martin always remembered the scene. The little, low, sealing room with its grotesque decorations looming fantastic through the semi-darkness. The noises and warm smells rising from the narrow street. The eyes of the girl opposite raised somewhat mockingly to his, as straw in mouth she bent her head over the ice-gummel. The birdy figure and benevolent face of their queer companion, who, for five francs, had offered it to be the arbiter of his destiny, and leaned forward, elbows on table, and chin in hand, serenely expectant to hear the inmost secrets of his life. He felt tongue-tied and shy, and, sucking too nervously at his straw, choked himself with the strongly cure. It was one thing to unburden himself to Carina, another to make coherent statement of his grievance to a stranger. I am at your disposal, my dear Overshore, said the latter kindly. From personal observation, and from your answers to Carina's au filard of questions, I gather that you are not overwhelmed by any cataclysm of disaster, but rather that yours is the more negative tragedy of a starved solar, poor, starved soul, hungering for love and joy, and the fruitfulness of the earth, and the bounty of spiritual things. Your difficulty now is, how to say to this man, give me bread for my soul? Am I not right? A glimmer of iron in his smiling grey eyes, or an inflection of it in his persuasive voice, would have destroyed the flattering effect of the little speech. Martin had never taken his soul into account. The diagnosis shed a new light on his state of being. The starvation of his soul was certainly the root of the trouble, an infinitely more dignified matter than mere discontent with one's environment. Yes, said he, you're right. I've had no chance of development. My own fault, perhaps. I've not been strong enough to battle against circumstances. Circumstances have imprisoned me, as Carina says, like a squirrel in a cage, and I've spent my time in going round and round in the profitless wheel. And the nature of the wheel? asked Fortenbrass. Have you ever heard of Margit's Universal College? I have, said Fortenbrass. It is one of the many mind-wrecking institutions of which our beloved country is so proud. I'm glad to hear you say that, cried Martin. I've been helping to wreck mines there for the last ten years. I've taught French, not the French language, but examination French. When the son of a greengrocer wants to get a boy's lark ship in the civil service, it's essential that he should know that Bal, Cal, Carnival, Pal, Regal, Chacal, take an S in the plural, in spite of the fact that millions of Frenchmen go through their lives without once uttering the plural words. How came you to teach French? My mother tongue, my mother was a Swiss. And your father? An English chaplain in Switzerland. You see, it was like this. And so, started on his course, and helped here and there by a shrewd and sympathetic question, Martin, the ingenuous, told his story, while Carona, slightly bored, having heard most of it already, occupied herself by drawing a villainous portrait of him on the tablecloth. When he mentioned details unknown to her, she paused in her task and raised her eyes. Like her own, his autobiography was a catalogue of incompetence, but it held no record of frustrated ambitions. No record of any ambitious desire, whatever. It showed the tame asses unreflecting acquiescence in its lot of drudgery. There have been no passionate cravings for things of delight. Why cry for the moon? With a salary of a hundred and thirty-five pounds a year, out of which he must contribute to the support of his widowed mother, a man can purchase for himself but little splendor of existence. And Martin was not one of those to whom splendor comes unbought. He had lived, semi-content, in a fog, splendor obscuring for the last ten years. But this evening the fog had lifted. That glamour of Paris, even the porthole and the Eiffel Tower sarcastically mentioned by Carona, had helped to dispel it. So Carona's sisterly interest in his done affairs. And so, more than all, had helped the self-analysis formulated under the compelling power of the philanthropist with shiny coat sleeves and frayed linen, at once priest, lawyer, and physician who pocketed his five francs fee. He talked long and earnestly, and the more he talked and the more minutely he revealed the aridity of his young life, the stronger grew within him a hitherto unknown spirit of revolt. That's all, he said at last, wiping a streaming bra. And very interesting indeed, said Fortebras. Isn't it, said Carona, and he never even kissed, so completely martin's apology, the landlady's daughter who married the plumber. She challenged him with a dance. I swear you didn't. With a shy twist of his lips Martin confessed, well, I did once. Why not twice? asked Carona. Yes, why not? asked Fortebras. And his smile was archipiscopal indulgence. Why but one taste of ambrosial lips? Martin reddened beneath his olive skin. I hardly like to say it seems so indelicate. Allons donc, croy Carona, we're in Paris, not Wendellbury. We must get to the bottom of this, my dear Martin. It's a privilege I demand from my clans to address them by their Christian names. Otherwise, how can I establish the necessary intimate rapport between them and myself? Sir, repeat, my dear Martin, we must have the reason for the rupture or the dissolution or the termination of what seems to be the only romantic episode in your career. I'm not joking, Fortebras added gravely after a pause. From the psychological point of view it is important that I should know. Martin looked appealingly from one to the other. From Fortebras massively serious to Carona serenely mocking. A weenie, unencouraged plumber, she suggested. He sat bolt upright and gasped. Good God, no! he flushed indignant. She was a most highly respectable girl, nothing of that sort. I wish I hadn't mentioned the matter. It's entirely unimportant. If that is so, said Carona, why didn't you kiss the girl again? Well, if you want to know, replied Martin desperately, I have a constitutional horror of the smell of onions. A mechanically he subbed through his straw the tepid residue of melted ice in his glass. Carona threw herself back in her chair and laughed uncontrollably. It was just the lunatic sort of thing that would happen to poor old Martin. She knew her sex. Instantaneously she pictured in her mind the fluffy, low-middle-class young person who set her cap at the gentleman with a long greasian nose, and she entered into her devastated frame of mind when he wriggled awkwardly out of further osculatory invitations. And the good, solid plumber, onion-loving soul, had carried her off, not figuratively, but literally under the nose of Martin. Oh, Martin, you're too funny for words! she cried. Forty-brow smiled almost benevolently. If Cleopatra's nose had been a centimetre longer—I forget the exact classical epigram—the history of the world would have been changed. In a minor degree, for the destiny of an individual must, of course, be of less importance than the destiny of mankind. Had it not been for one spring onion, unconsidered fellow of the Robin and the burnished dove and the wanted lap-wing, this young man's fancy would have been fettered in the thoughts of love. One spring onion and human destinies are juggled. Martin is still a soul-starve bachelor, and—and her name? Gwendolyn? And Gwendolyn is the buxom-mother of five. Six, said Martin. I can't help knowing, he explained, since I still lodge with her mother. Corinna turned her head sideways to scrutinize the drawing on the tablecloth. And, still scrutinizing it, asked. And that is your one and only affaire du coeur? I'm afraid the only one, replied Martin, shame-facedly. Even so mild a man as he felt the disadvantage had not been able to hint to a woman that he could talk, and he would, of chimes heard at midnight and of broken hearts and other circumstances hedging round a devil of a fellow. His one kiss seemed a very bread-and-buttery affair, to say nothing of the mirth-provoking onion. And the emotion attending the approach to it had been of a nature so tepid that disillusioned caused scarcely a pang. It had been better to pose, as an out-and-out Sagana had, a type comprehensible to women. As the hero of one invertebrate embrace he cut a sorry figure. You are still young. The years on the women's lips before you are many, said Fortenbrass, laying a comforting touch on Martin's shoulder. Opportunity makes the lover as it does the thief. And in the bed-sitting room in Hickney Heath, where you've spent your young life, where has been the opportunity? It pleases our Paris-hardened young friend to mock. But I see in you the making of a great lover, a baton de l'aliment, a chastelard, one who will count the world well lost for a princess's smile, Carina interrupted. What pernicious nonsense are you talking, Fortenbrass? You've got love on the brain to-night. Neither Martin or I are worrying our heads about it. Love be hanged. Were each of us worried to death over the problem of how to keep body and soul together without going back to prison? And you talk all this drivel about love. Well, at least not to me, but to Martin. That qualification, my dear Carina, upsets the logic of your amourable charade. Fortenbrass replied calmly after drinking the remainder of his syrup and soda water. I speak of love to Martin because his soul is starved, as I've already shared. I don't speak of it to you because your soul is suffering from indigestion. I'll have another cumul glace, Sir Carina. It's a stomach itch. She reached for the bell-pool behind her chair. She had the corner seat. Auguste appeared. Orders were repeated. How can you drink all that syrup without being sick? I can't understand, to your mark. Omni-comprehension is not about safety, even to the very young and innocent, my dear, said Fortenbrass. Martin glanced across the table apprehensively. If every young woman had been set down, that young woman was Carina Hastings. He feared explosion, annihilation of the down-setter. Nothing of the sort happened. Carina accepted the rebuff with the meekness of a schoolgirl, and sniffed when Fortenbrass was not looking. Again Martin was puzzled, unable to divest himself of his old conception of Carina. She was Carina, chartered Libertine of the land of Rodolphe, Marcel Chonard. He had a few impressions of the Côte d'Alata later than Henri Muge. And her utterances, no matter how illogical, were derived from godlike inspiration. He hung on her lips for some inspired and vehement rejoinder to the rebuke of Fortenbrass. When none came, he realised that in the seedly dressed and now profusely perspiring Marcel de Bonheur, she had met an acknowledged master. Who Fortenbrass was, whence his origin, what his character and social status, how, saved by the precarious methods to which he deluded, he earned his livelihood, Martin had no idea. But he suddenly conceived an immense respect for Fortenbrass. The man hovered over both of them on a higher plane of wisdom. From his kind eyes, to Martin's simple fancy, beamed uncanny power, he assumed the semblance of an odd sort of god, indigenous to this Paris wonder-world. Fortenbrass lit another of Martin's Virginia cigarettes. The little tin box lay open on the table, and leaned back in his chair. My young friends said he, you have each put before me the circumstances which have made you respectively despair of finding happiness both in the immediate and the distant future. Now, as Montaigne says, an offer whom I would recommend to you for the edification of your happily remote middle age, having myself found infinite consolation in his sagacity. As Montaigne says, men are tormented by the ideas they have concerning things, and not by the things themselves. The wise man, therefore, the general term, my dear Corinna also includes within, is he who has learned to face things themselves after having dispelled the bogies of his ideas concerning them. It is on this basis that I am about to deliver the judgment for which I have duty received by fee of ten francs. He moistened his lips with the pink syrup. For the picture you can imagine a grey old lan eating ice cream. You, Corinna, he continued, belong to the new race of women whose claims on life far exceed their justification. You have, as assets, youth, a modicum of beauty, a bright intelligence, and a stiff little character. But, as you rightly say, you are capable of nothing in the steep range of human effort from painting a picture to washing a baby. Were you not temperamentally puritanical and intellectually obsessed by the modern notion of women's right to an independent existence, you would find a means of realizing the above-mentioned assets, as your sex has done through the centuries. But, in spite of Amazonian trifling with romantic visages and granite-headed medical students, you cling to the irresponsibilities of a celibate career. If you ask me, I'll marry a Turk tomorrow. Say, Corinna, don't interrupt. Said Fortenbrass. You disturb the flow of my ideas. I have no doubt that in your desperate situation you would promise to marry a Turk. But your essential pusillability would make you riddle out of it at the last moment. You're like the poor cat in the adage. What cat? asked Corinna. The one in Macbeth, Act I, Scene III, a play by Shakespeare. Letting I dare not wait upon I would, like the poor cat in the adage. You require development, my dear Corinna, out of the cat stage. You've had your head choked with ideas about things in this soul suffocating Paris, and the ideas are tormenting you. But you've never been at grips with things themselves. As for our excellent Martin, he has not even arrived at the stage of the Desires cat. A smile that lit up his coarse-lined features, and the musical suavity of his voice divested the words of offence. Martin, with a laugh, has sent it to the proposition. He too needs development, Fortenbrass went on, or rather, not so much development as a collection of soul material for which development may proceed. Your one accomplishment, I understand, is riding a bicycle. Let us take that as the germ from which the tree of happiness may spring. Do you bicycle, Corinna? I can, of course, but I hate it. You don't, reply, Fortenbrass, quickly. You hate your own idea of it. You'll begin your course of happiness by sweeping away all your ideas concerning bicycling, and coming to bicycling itself. I never heard anything so idiotic, did they, Corinna? Doubtless, smile, Fortenbrass, you haven't heard everything. Go on your knees and thank God for it. I repeat, or amplify my prescription. Go forth, both of you, on bicycles into the wide world. There will not be wheels of chance, but wheels of destiny. Go through the broad land of France, fitting your souls with sunshine and freedom, and your throats with salatory and thirst-provoking dust. Have no care for the morrow, and look at the future through the golden haze of eventide. That I think I should like better, said Martin with a glance at Corinna. But I can't afford it. I must get back to London to look out for an engagement. Fortenbrass mopped his briar with an over-fatide pocket-hankerchief. What did you pay me five francs for? For the pleasure of hearing me talk, or for the value of my counsel? I must look at things practically, said Martin. But good God! cried Fortenbrass with soft uplifted hands. What is there more practical, more commonplace, less romantic in the world than riding a bicycle? You want to emerge from your slav despond, don't you? Of course, said Martin. Then I say get on a bicycle and ride out of it. Practical to the point of pathos. Martin objected. No one will pay me for careering through France on a bicycle. I've got to live, and for that matter of fact so has Corinna. But my dear young friend, she has twenty pounds. You, on your own showing, have forty. Sixty pounds between you? A fortune. You are both cemented by the idea of what will happen when the pactulus runs dry. Banish that pestilential miasma from your minds. Go on the adventure. In poetic terms he set forth the delights of that aborable vagabondage. His eloquence sent a thrill through Martin's veins, causing his blood to tingle. Before him new horizons broadened. He felt the necessity of the immediate securing of an engagement grow less insistent. If he got home with twenty pounds in his pocket, even fifteen at a pinch ten, he could manage to subsist until he found work. And perhaps this blandly authoritative, though seedy angel, really saw into the future. The temptation fascinated him. He danced again at Corinna who sat to mure and silent, her chin propped on her fists, and his heart sank. The proposition was absurd. How could he ride abroad for an indefinite number of days and nights with a young unmarried woman? Of himself he had no fear. Undesirous cat, though he was, set forth on the journey into the world to learn desire. He could not but remain a gentleman. In his charge she would enjoy a sister's sanctity. But she would never consent. She could not. No matter how profound her belief in his chivalry, her maiden modesty would revolt, her reputation would be gone. One whisper in Wendellbury of such gypsy-ing, and scandal with baird scissor-points would arrest her on the station-platform. And while these thoughts agitated his mind, and Corinna kept her eyes always demure and somewhat ironical on Fort Imbras, the latter continued to talk. I am not advising you, said he, to peddle away like little pilgrims into the unknown. I propose for you an objective. In the little town of Brantôme in the Odoinia, made illustrious by one of the quaintest of French writers, the Abbey Brantôme of L'Avie des Dames Galons, asked Corinna. Martin Gasp, you don't know that book. By heart, she replied mischievously, in order to shock Martin. As a matter of fact, she had but turned over the pages of the immortal work, and laid it down, disconcerted both by the archaic French, and the full flavour of such an anecdote or two, as she could understand. In the little town of Brantôme, Fort Imbras continued after a pause, you will find a hotel called the Hotel des Grottes, kept by an excellent and massive man by the name of Bigourna, a poet, and a philosopher, and a mighty maker of Paris de foie gras. A line from me would put you on his lowest tariff, for he has a descending scale of charges, one for mattresses, another for commercial travellers, and a third for human beings. It would be utterly delightful, Martin interrupted, if it were possible. Why shouldn't it be possible? asked Corinna with a calm glance. You and I are alone that the proprieties, he stammered. Again Corinna burst out laughing. Is that what's worrying you? I poor Martin, you're too comic, what are you afraid of? I promise you I'll respect maiden modesty, my word of honour. It is entirely on your account, but if you don't mind, said Martin politely. I assure you I don't mind at the least, replied Corinna with equal politeness. But supposing, she turned to Fort Imbras, we do go on this journey. What will we do when we got to the great Monsieur Bigourna? You would sun yourselves in his wisdom, replied Fort Imbras, and convey my love to my little daughter, Philly's. If Fort Imbras had alluded to his possession of a steam-yacht, Corinna could not have been more astonished. To her he was merely the martyred child de Bonheur, a centipohemian, half charlatan, half good fellow, without private life or kindred. She sat, bolt upright. You, have a daughter? Why not? Am I not a man? Haven't I lived my life? Haven't I had my shares of its joys and sorrows? Why should it surprise you that I have a daughter? Corinna reddened. You haven't told me about her before. When do I have the occasion in this world of students to speak of things precious to me? I tell you now. I am sending you to her. She is twenty, and to my excellent brother-in-law, Bigorda, because I think you are good children, and I should like to give you a bit of my heart for my ten francs. Fort Imbras, said Corinna, with a quick outstretch of her arm. I'm a beast. Tell me what she is she like? To me, smile, Fort Imbras. She is like one of the wild flowers from which alpine honey is made. To other people she is doubtless a well-mannered, commonplace young person. You will see her and judge for yourself. How far is it from Paris to Brentaume? asked Martin. Roughly about five hundred kilometres under three hundred miles. Take your time. You have sixty pounds worth of sunny hours before you, and there is much to be learned in three hundred miles of France. In a few weeks' time I will join you at Brentaume, joining my train as befits my soberer age. I go there a certain number of times a year to see Felice. Then, if you will continue to favour me with your patronage, we shall have another consultation. There was a brief silence. Fort Imbras looked from one young face to the other. Then he brought his hands down with a soft thump on the table. You, hesitate, he cried indignantly, you're afraid to take your poor little lives in your hands even for a few weeks. He pushed back his chair and rose and swept a benning gesture. I have nothing more to do with you. For profitless advice by conscience allows me to charge nothing. He tore open his frock-coat and his fingers, diving into his waist-cut pocket, brought forth and threw down the two five-frank pieces. Go your ways! said he. At this dramatic moment both the young people sprang protesting to their feet. What are you talking about? We're going to Brentaume. Quite corona, gripping the lapels of his coat. Oh, of course we are, exclaimed Martin, scared of the prospect of losing the inspired counsellor. Then why aren't you more enthusiastic? cried Fort Imbras. But we are enthusiastic, coroner-lidlered. We'll start to-morrow, said Martin. At six o'clock in the morning, cried coroner. And five, if you like, said Martin. Fort Imbras embraced them both in a capacious smile, as he deliberately repocketed the coins. That is well, my children. But don't do too many unaccustomed things at once. In the doine you can rise at five with enjoyment and impunity. In Paris your meeting at that hour will be fought with mutual antipathy, and you would not find a shop open where you could power or buy your bicycles. I've got one, said coroner. So have I, said Martin, but it's in London. Fort Imbras extracted from his person a dim, chainless watch. It is now a quarter-past one. Time for honest folk to be a bed. Meet me here at eleven o'clock to-morrow, booted and spurred, with but a script at your back of your bicycles, and I will hand you letters to Feliz and the poetic and philosophic Pigourga. And now, said he, with your permission, I will ring for Auguste. Auguste appeared, and Martin, waving aside the protests of Carina, paid the modest bill. In the early street Fort Imbras made them an impressive good night, and disappeared in the byways of the Sultry City. Martin accompanied Carina to the gaunt neighbouring building wherein her eerie was situate. Both were tongue-tied, shy, embarrassed by the prospect of the intimate adventure to which they had pledged themselves. When the great door, swung open by the hidden corsage at Carina's ring, invited her entrance, they shook hands perfuncturally. At a quarter to eleven, said Martin, I should be ready, said Carina. End of Chapter 2 The bicycle journey of two young people through a mere three hundred miles of France is, on the face of it, an odyssey of no importance. The only interest that could attach itself to such a hum-drum affair would centre in the development of tender feelings reciprocated, or otherwise, in the breasts of both or one of the young people. But when the two of them proceeded dusterly and unemotionally along the endless, straight, poplar-bordered roads, with the heart of each at the end of the day as untroubled by the other as at the beginning, a detailed account of their wanderings would resolve itself into a commonplace itinerary. My children, said Fortenbras, when, after having lunch for them at the Petit Cornichon and given them letters of introduction and his blessing, he had accompanied them to the pavement whence they were preparing to start. I advise you, until you reach Brontorm, to call yourself brother and sister, so that your idyllic companionship shall not be misinterpreted. Pou! or some such vocable of scorn, Carina remarked, We are not in narrow-minded England. In narrow-minded England, Fortenbras replied, without a wedding-ring and without the confessed brother and sister in a relation, Inns would close their virtuous doors against you. In France, where a pair of lovers is universally regarded as an object of romantic interest, ink-keepers would confuse you with zealous attentions. Thus, in either country, though for opposite reasons, you would be bound to encounter impossible embarrassment. I don't think there would be any danger of the hat, laughed Carina lightly, unless Martin went mad. But perhaps it would be just as well to play the comedy. I'll stick up my cheek to be kissed every night in the presence of the landlady. Boursois-moivre? Do you think you can go through the performance, Martin? Martin, very uncomfortable, already experiencing at the suggestion of misconstrued relations the embarrassment foreshadowed by Fortenbras, flushed deeply, and took refuge in examination of his bicycle. The celibate dreamer was shocked by her cool bravado. Since the episode of Grendelin he had lived remote from the opposite sex. The only woman he had known intimately was his mother, and from that knowledge he had formed the profound conviction that women were entirely futile and utterly holy. Carina kept on knocking this conviction end-wise. She made hay not to say chaos with his theory of women. He felt himself on the verge of a fog-filled abysm of knowledge. There she stood, a foot or two away. His guest dared to glance at her. He wrecked, clear-eyed, the least futile person in the world, treating her suggestion the most disconcerting and appalling to maidenhood with the unholiest mockery. And, coolly proposing, in order to give themselves an air of innocence, they should contract the habit of a nightly embrace. I'll do anything, said he, to prevent disagreeableness arising. Carina laughed, and after final farewells they rode away down the baking little street, leaving Fortinbras watching them wistfully until they had disappeared. And he remained a long time following in his thoughts the pair whom he had dispatched upon their unsentimental journey. How young they were, how mannable, how agape for hope, like young thrushes for worms, how attractive in their respective ways, how careless of sunstroke! If only he could have escaped with them from this sweltering Paris to the cool shadow of the door-doin rocks and the welcome of a young girl's eyes! What a hopeless mess and muddle was life! He sighed and mopped his forehead, and then a hand touched his arm. He turned and saw the care-warm face of Madame Goussa, the fat wife of a neighbouring prince-seller. Monsieur Fortinbras is it only you in this city of misfortune that can give me advice. My husband left me the day before yesterday and has not returned. I am in despair. I have been weeping ever since. I weep now. She did, copiously regardless of the gaze of the street. Tell me what to do, my good Monsieur Fortinbras, you who may call the Marshal de Bonheur. See, I have your little honorarium. She held out her five-frank piece. Fortinbras slipped it into his waistcoat pocket. At your service, madame, said he with a sigh. Doubtless I shall be able to restore to you a fallacious semblance of conjugal felicity. I was sure of it, said the lady already comforted, if you would deign to enter the shop, Monsieur. Fortinbras followed her, and for a while lost his envy of Martin and Corinna in patient and ironic consideration of the naughtiness of Monsieur Goussa. The first stage out of Paris was the only time when the wanderers braved the midday heat of the Golden August. They took a council together in an ear-weagy arbour outside Versailles, where they quenched their thirst with cider. They were in no hurry to reach their destination. A few hours in the early morning they could start at six, and an hour or two in the cool of the evening would suffice. For a moment of the day would be devoted to repose. And churches and cathedrals, added Martin. You have a frolicsome idea of a holiday-jorned, said Corinna. What else can we do? Eat lotus, said Corinna. Forget that there ever such places as Paris, or London, or Wendellbury. I don't think Chathra will remind me of one of them, said Martin. I've dreamed of Chathra ever since I read La Catedral by Hoismans. You're what they call an earnest soul, remarked Corinna. All the way here I've never stopped wondering why I've come with you on this insane pilgrimage to nowhere. I've been wondering the same myself, said Martin. As he'd lain awake most of the night, and therefore risen late, the occupation of the morning involving the seglection and hire of a bicycle, consultation with the excursion of the Hôtel du Soleil et de la Cosse, with regard to luggage being forwarded, the changing of his money into French banknotes and gold, and various small purchases, and left him little time for reflection. It was only when he found himself peddling persparingly by the side of this comparatively unknown and startling young woman, who is to be his intimate companion for heaven knew how long, that he began to think. It was comforting to know that Corinna asked herself the same question. That old humbug fought in brass must have put a spell upon us, she continued, without commenting on Martin's lack of gallantry. He sort of envelops one in such a mist of words, uttered in that musical voice of his, and he looks so inspired with the never-known wisdom that one loses one's common sense. The old wretch can persuade anybody to do anything. He once invaded a girl, an art student, into becoming a nun. Martin's Protestant antagonism was aroused. He expressed himself, heatedly. He saw nothing but reprehensibility in the action of fought in brass. Corinna examined her well-trimmed fingernails. It was a question of Saint-Laudille that that, I think, was the order, or Saint-Lazare. Some girls are like that. Saint-Lazare? Don't you know anything? she sighed. What's the good of being decently epic-romatic? Saint-Lazare is the final destination of a certain temperament unsupported by good looks or money. It's the woman's prison of Paris. Oh, Saint Martin. How he did it, I don't know. But he saved her body and soul. And now she's the happiest creature in the world. I had a letter from her only the other day, urging me to go over to Rome and take the vows. I hope you're not thinking of it, Saint Martin. I am in no danger of Saint-Lazare," replied Corinna dryly. There was a long silence. In the leafy arbor screened from the dust and layer of the highway, they prevailed a drowsy peace. Only one of the dozen other green-blisted wooden tables was occupied, and that, by a blue-bloused workman and his wife and baby, all temperately refreshing themselves with harmless liquid, the last from nature's fount itself. The landlord, obese, unshaven, and our pack of jacketed, read the pettigernal at the threshold of the cafe of which the arbor terrace was but a summer adjunct. A mangy mongrel lying at his feast snapped personically at flies. A couple of tower-headed urchins hung by the arched entrance, no-class perries at the gates of a dilapidated paradise. "'Who is' fought in brass?' Martin asked. Corinna shrugged her dainty shoulders. She did not know. Rumour had it, and for rumour she could not vouchsafe, that he was an English solicitor struck off the rolls. With French law at any rate he was familiar. He had the cord Napoleon at his finger-end. In spite of the sober black clothes and white tie of the French attorney which he evaded, he certainly possessed no French qualifications which would have enabled him to set up a regular cabinet d'avoué and earn a professional livelihood. Nor did he presume to step within the avoué's jealously guarded sphere. But his opinion on legal points was so sound, and his feebs, so moderate, that many consulted him in preference to an orthodox practitioner. That was all that Corinna knew of him in his legal aspect. The rest of his queer practice consisted in advising in all manner of complications. He arbitrated in disputes between man and man, woman and woman, lover and mistress, husband and wife, parent and child. He diverted the debtor from the path to bankruptcy. He rescued you the some maidens from disastrous nymphs and defawns. He hushed up scandal. Meanwhile his private life and even his address remained unknown. Twice a day he went the round of the cafes and restaurants of the courtier, so that those in need of his assistants had but to the weight of their respective taverns in order to see him. For he appeared with the inevitability of the sun in its course. There are all kinds of parasitical people, so Corinna, who try to spunt on students for drinks and meals and money. But for him perhaps isn't that kind. Now and again, but not often, he will accept an invitation to lunch or dinner, and then it's always for the purpose of discussing business. Whether it's his cunning or his honesty, I don't know. But nobody's afraid of him. That's his great asset. You're absolutely certain sure that he won't stick you for anything. Consequently anybody in trouble or difficulty goes to him confident that his five francs consultation fee is the end of the financial side of the matter, and that he will concentrate his whole mind and soul on the case. He's an odd devil. The most remarkable man I've ever met, said Martin. You've not met many, said Corinna. I don't know, replied Martin reflectively. I once came across a prize-fighter, a remarkable chap, in the bar parlour of the pub at the corner of our street, who was afterwards hanged for murdering his wife. And I once met a member of parliament, another remarkable man, forget his name now. And then, of course, there was Cyrus Margrette. But none of them is in it with Fortinbras, Corinna smiled with ironic indulgence. None, said Martin, had his peculiar magnetic quality, not even the member of parliament. But, he continued after a pause, is that all that is known of him? He seems to be a very mysterious person. I shouldn't mind betting you, said Corinna, that you and I, the only people in Paris who are aware of his daughter in Blanc d'Orme. Why should he single us out for such a confidence? asked Martin. He said last night that he was giving us a bit of his heart, because we were good children. It was quite touching. But why should we be the only ones to have a bit of his heart? Would you like to know? asked Corinna, meeting his eyes full. I should. He told me before you turned up at the Pétis Cornicheau this morning, that you interested him as a sort of celestial freak. I'm not sure whether to take that as a compliment or not, replied Martin, pausing in the act of rodent a cigarette. It's tantamount to calling me an infernal ass. At this show, spirit, the girls swiftly changed her tone. He may take it from me that Fortinbras doesn't give a bit of his heart to infernal asses. If I had gone to him on my own, he would never, you heard him, he would never have touched on things precious to him. It's for your sake, not mine. But why? Because he's fed up with the likes of me, said Corinna, with sudden bitterness. There are hundreds and thousands of us. Martin knitted his prayer. I don't understand. Better not try, she said. Let us pay for the cider and get on. So they paid and went on, and halted at the town-let of Rambouillet, where, as Monsieur de Marre-Moselle oversaw, they engaged rooms at the most modest of terms. And to Martin's infinite relief Corinna did not summon him to kiss her cheek in the presence of the landlady before they retired for the night. He went to bed, comforted by the thought that Corinna's bark was worse than her bite. I've done my best to tell you that this was an unsentimental journey. So, day after day, they sped their innocent course. Resting by night at tiny places where haughty automobiles halted not. They had but sixty pounds to their joint fortune, and it behoved them not to dissipate it in unwanted luxury. Through Chartres they went, and Corinna, quite as eagerly as Martin, drank in deep drafts of its gothic mystery and its splendour of stained glass. Through Château d'Inne with its grim old castle. Through Vendôme with the flaming west front of its cathedral. Through Tour, in the neighbourhood of which they lingered many days, seeing and familiar intimacy, things of which they had but dreamed before. Chineau, Loche, Cheneau-sur, Azey-le-Ridot. Perhaps the most delicate of all the Château of the Loire. And following the council of a sage fought in Brass, they went but a few kilometres out of their way and visit Richelieu. A fascinating town known only to the wanderer, himself judicious or judiciously advised, that was built by the great cardinal outside his paddice-gates for the accommodation of his court. And there it remains now, untouched by time, priceless jewel of the art of Louis III's, with its walls and gates and church and market square, and stately central thoroughfare of a hotel for the nobles, each having its mansard roof and port-côte-shaire giving entrance to court and garden. And there it remains, dozing in prosperity, for a round it spread the vineyards which supply brandy to the wide, wide world. It was here that Martin, sitting with Grinna on a blister bench beneath the plain-tree in the little market-place, said for the first time, I don't seem to care whether I ever see England again. What about getting another billet? asked Grinna. England and billets are synonymous terms. The further I go, the less important as it appear that I should get one. At any rate, the more loathsome is the prospect of a return to slavery. Don't let us talk of it, she said, fanning herself with her hat. The mere thought of going back turns the sun gray. Let us imagine we're just going on and on for ever and ever. I've been doing so in a general way, he replied. I've been living in a sort of intoxication. But now and then I wake up and have a lucid interval. And then I feel that by not sitting on the doorstep of scholastic agents, I'm doing something wrong, something almost immoral. And it gives me an unholy thrill of delight. When I was a small child, said Grinna, I used to take the Ten Commandments one by one and secretly break them, just to see what would happen. Some I didn't know how to break—the Seventh, for instance, which worried me. And others, referring to stealing and murder, were rather two stiff propositions. But I chipped out with a nail on a tile, a little graven image, and I bowed down and worshipped it in great excitement. And as Father used to tell us that the Third Commandant included all kinds of swearing, I used to bend over an old well we had in the garden and whisper, damn, damn, damn, damn, until the awful joy of it made my flesh creep. I think, Martin, you can't be more than ten years old. Why do you spoil a bit of sympathetic comprehension by that last remark? He asked. Why do you jib at truth? he retorted. Truth? Aren't you like a child, reveling in noughtiness? Noughtiness just for the sake of being naughty? Perhaps I am, said he. But why do you mock at me for it? I don't think I'm mocking, she answered more seriously. When I said you were only ten years old, I meant to be rather affectionate. I seem to be ever so old in experience, and you never to have grown up. You'll say refreshing after all these people I've been mixed up with, mostly lots younger really than you, who've plumbed the depths of human knowledge and have fished up the dregs and holding them out in their hands say, see what it all comes to. I'm dead sick of them. So to consult as I've been doing with an ingenuous mind like yours is a real pleasure. Martin rose from his seat, and a tortoise shall count, the only other denizen of the marketplace, startled from intimate ablutions, gaze at him, still poising a forward-thrown hind leg. My dear Corinna, said he, I would beg you to believe that I'm not so damned ingenuous as all that. For reply Corinna laughed out loud, whereupon the cat fled. She rose too. Let us look at the church and cool this heat of controversy. So they visited the Luitre's church and continued their journey. And the idle days passed, and nothing happened of any importance. They talked a vast deal, and now and then wrangled. After his sturdy declaration at Richelieu, Martin resented her jibes at his ingenuousness. He felt that it was incumbent on him to play the man. At first Corinna had taken command of their tour, ordering routes and making contracts with innkeepers. These functions he now usurped. The former to advantage, for he discovered that Corinna's splendid misreading of maps had led them devious and unprofitable courses. The latter to the disgusted remonstrance of Corinna, who found the charges preposterously increased. I don't care, said Martin. I don't mind your treating me as a brother, but I'm not going to be treated as your little brother. In the freedom and adventure of their unremarkable pilgrimage, he had begun to develop, to loosen the fear of her ironical tongue, to crave some sort of self-assertion, if not of self-expression. He also discovered in her certain little feminine frailties, which flatteringly aroused his masculine sense of superiority. Once they were overtaken by a thunderstorm, and in the couch out to which they had raced for shelter, she sat fear-stricken, holding hands to ears at every clap, while Martin, hands in pockets, stood serene at the doorway, interested in the play of the lightning. What was there to be afraid of? Far more dangerous to cross London or Paris streets, or to take a railway journey. Her unreasoning terror was woman's weakness, a mere matter of nerves. He would be indulgent. So, turning from the door, he put his waterproof cape over her shoulders, as she was feeling cold, and the humility with which she accepted his services afforded him considerable gratification. Of course, when the sun came out, she carried her head high and soon found occasion for a jibe, but Martin rode on unheeding. There were situations in which he was master. Once also, in order to avoid a drove of stairs emerging from a farmyard gate, she had swirred violently into a ditch and twisted her ankle. As she could neither walk nor ride, he picked her up in his arms. I'll take you to the farmhouse. You can't possibly carry me, she protested. I'll soon show you, said Martin, and he carried her. And although she was none too light, and his muscles strained beneath her weight, he rejoiced in her surprised appreciation of his man's strength. But halfway she railed, white-dipped. I suppose you're quite certain now, you're my big brother. Perfectly certain, said Martin. And then he felt her grip around his neck relax, and her body away dead in his arms. And he saw that she had fainted from the pain. Leaving her in the care of the kind farm-people, he went to retrieve the abandoned bicycles, and reflected on the occurrence. In the first place he would not have lost his head on a country a set of harmless stairs. Secondly, had he accidentally twisted his ankle, Corinna could not have carried him. Thirdly he would not have fainted. Fourthly, mocking as her last words had been, she had confessed her inferiority. All of which was most comforting to his self-esteem. Then, some time afterwards, when the farmer put her into a broken-down icky-podge, covered with a vast hood and drawn by gaunt-horse, rush-steady comparisons, in order to drive her to the nearest inn some five kilometres distant, Martin superintended the arrangements, leaving Corinna not a word to say. He rode a-mounted constable by her side, and on arriving at the inn carried her up to her room, and talked with much authority. Then, having passed through Poitiers and Ruffec, they came three weeks after their start from Paris to Angoulême, daintiest of cities, perched on its bastion-rocks above the Charente. And here, as it was the penultimate stage of their journey, they sojourned a few days. They stood on the shady rampart and gazed over the red-roofed houses, emboured in greenery, at the great plain, golden in harvest and drenched in sunshine and side. I dread Brontourne, said Corinna. It marks something definite. Here, too, we've been going along vaguely in a sort of stupefied dream. A Brontourne will have to think. I've no doubt it will do us good, said Martin. I failed to see it, said Corinna. We'll just have the same old worry over again. I'm not so sure, Martin answered. In the first place we're not quite the same people as we were three weeks ago. Rubbish, said Corinna. I'm not the same person at any rate. She laughed. Because you give yourself airs nowadays. Even my giving myself airs, he replied sobly, denotes a change. But it's deeper than that. It's difficult to explain. I feel I have a grip on myself I hadn't before, and also an intensity of delight in things I never had before. The first half hour or so of our rides in the early-during mornings, our rough déjeuner outside the little cafes, the long drowsy afternoons under the trees, watching the lazy life of the road, the wine wagons and the bullock carts and the sun-burnt men and women, and the brown dusty children with their goats, and the quiet evenings under the stars when we've either sat alone saying nothing or else talked to the patron of the aubergine and listened to his simple philosophy of life, and then to sleep drunk with air and sunshine between the clean coarse sheets, to sleep like a dog until the scurry of the house wakes you at dawn. I don't know, he fettered up blamely. It's been a thrill, morning, noon and night, and my life before this was remarkably devoid of thrills. Of course, he added after a slight pause. You've had a good deal to do with it. Je te remercie infiniment mon frère, say Karenna. That is as much as to say, I've not been my too-dial companion. You've been a delightful companion, he cried boisely. I had no idea a girl could be so— so— he swapped for a word with his fingers. Her eyes smiled on him, and lips showed ever so delicate a curl of irony. So what? So companiable, said he. She laughed again. What exactly do you mean by that? So sensible, said Martin. When a man calls a girl sensible, do you know what he means? He means that she doesn't expect him to fall in love with her. Now, you haven't fallen in love with me, have you? Martin from his lolling position on the parapet sprang erect. I should never dream of such a thing. She laughed loud and grasped the lapels of his jacket. Oh, Martin, she cried, you're a gem, a rare jewel! You haven't changed one little bit, and for heaven's sake, don't change. If you mean that I haven't turned from a gentleman into a cad, then I haven't changed," said Martin, freeing himself, and I'm glad of it. She tossed her head in the laughter dyed from her face. I don't see how you would be a cad to have fallen in love with a girl who is neither unattractive nor a fool, and has been your sole companion from morning to night for three weeks. Ninety-nine men out of a hundred would have done it. I don't believe it, said Martin. I have a higher estimate of the honor of my fellow men. If that's your opinion of me," she said, and turning swiftly walked away. Martin overtook her. Do you want me to fall in love with you? he asked. She halted for a second and stamped her foot. No, ten thousand times no. If you did, I'd throw vitriol over you. She marched on. Martin followed in an obfuscated frame of mind. She led the way round the ramparts, and out into the narrow, cobble-pave streets of the old town, past dilapidated glories of the Renaissance, where once great nobles had entertained kings, and now the proletariat hung laundry to dry over royal salamanders and proud discussions, past the Miso de Saint-Symour, with its calm and time-melod ornamental exquisite orials, past things over which, but yesterday, but that morning, they'd lingered lovingly into the Place du Mourier. There she paused as if seeking her bearings. Where are you going? asked Martin somewhat breathlessly. To some place where I can be alone, she flashed. Very well, said he, and raised his cap, and left her. In a few seconds he heard her call. Martin. He turned. Yes. I'm anything you like to call me, she said. It's not your fault. It's my temper. But you've got to learn it's better not to turn women down flat like that, even when they speak in jest. I'm very sorry, Corinna, he said, smiling gravely. But when one jests on such subjects, I don't know where I am. They crossed the square slowly, side by side. I suppose neither you nor anybody else could understand, she said. I was angry with you. But if you played the fool, I should have been angrier still. Why? he asked. She looked straight ahead with a strange glance, and for a minute or two did not reply. At last— You remember Fortinbras mentioning the name of Camille Fuggle? Oh! said Martin. That's why, said Corinna. Is he a brontone? asked Martin, with briar perplexed by the memory of the ridiculous mother. No, I wished to God he was. Are you engaged? In a sort of a way, said Corinna gloomily. I see, said Martin. You don't see a little bit in the world. She retorted with a sudden laugh. You're utterly mystified. I'm not, he did less directly. Why on earth shouldn't you have a love affair? I thought you insinuated that none of your fellow men would look at me twice. He contracted his briars and regarded her steadily. I'm beginning to get tired of this argument, said he. Her eyes drooped first. Perhaps you really have progressed a bit since we started. I was doing my best to tell you when you switched off onto this idiotic circuit. Suddenly she put out her hand. Don't let us quarrel, Martin. What has been joy and wonder to you has been merely an anodyne to me. I'm about the most visible girl in France. I wish you'd told me something of this before, said Martin, because I've been feeling myself the happiest man. End of Chapter 3. There is six o'clock striking and those English have not yet arrived. Thus spake Gaspard Marie Pigourdin, landlord of the Hotel Ligrott, a vast man clad in a brown Holland suit and a soft straw hat with a gigantic brim. So vast was he that his person overlapped in all directions the Austrian-Bentwood rocking-chair in which he was taking the cool of the evening. They said there would come in time for dinner, mon oncle, said Felice. She was a graceful slip of a girl, dark-eyed, refined of feature. Fort impressed with maternal fondness, if you remember, had likened her to the wild flowers from which alpine honey was made. And indeed she suggested wild fragrance. Her brown hair was done up on the top of her head and fastened by a comb, like that of all the peasant girls of the district, but she wore the blouse and stuffed skirt of the well-to-do bourgeoisie. Six o'clock is already time for dinner in Brontôme. They are accustomed to the hours of London and Paris, where I've heard they dine at eight or nine or any time that pleases them. In London and Paris they get up at midday and go to bed at dawn. They are coming here purposely to disabilitate themselves from the ways of London and Paris. At least so your father gives me to understand. It is a bad beginning. I am longing to see them, said Feliz. Don't you see enough English? Ten years ago an Englishman at Brontôme was a curiosity. All the inhabitants, you among them, my petty Feliz, used to run two kilometres to look at him. But now, with the automobile, they are as familiar in the eyes of the good Brontômeoir as truffles. By this simile, Monsieur Bigaudin did not mean to convey the idea that the twelve hundred inhabitants of Brontôme were all gastronomic volupturies. It is true that Brontôme battens on Pâté de foie gras. But it is the essence of its existence, seeing that Brontôme makes it and sells it, and with pigs and dogs hunts the truffles without which Pâté de foie gras would be a commestible of fat absurdity. But no English had been sent before by my father, said Feliz. That's true, replied Bigaudin, with a capacious smile, showing white, strong teeth. They are the first people, French or English, I shall have met who know my father. That's true also, said Bigaudin, and there must be the royal types, like your excellent father himself. Tiens, let me see a game what he says about them. He searched his pockets, a process involving convulsions of his frame, which made the rocking chair creak. I must be in my black jacket, said he at last. I'll get it, said Feliz, and went into the house. Bigaudin rolled and lit a cigarette and gave himself up to comfortable reflection. The Hôtel des Grott was built on the slope of a rock, and the lodgier or veranda on which Bigaudin was taking his ease hung over a miniature precipice. At the bottom ran the river Drón, encircling most of the old world's town, and crossed here and there by flashing little bridges. A way to the northeast loomed the mountains of the Limousin, where the river had its source. The tiny place slumbered in the slanting sunshine. The sight of Brontôme stretched out below him was inseparable from Bigaudin's earliest conception of the universe. In the Hôtel des Grott he had been born. There, save for a few years at Lyon, with the he had been sent by his mother in order to widen his views on hotel keeping, he had spent all his life, and there he sincerely hoped to die, full of honour and good nourishment. Brontôme contented him. It belonged to him. It was so diminutive and compact that he could take the whole of it in at once. He was familiar with all the little tragedies and comedies that enacted themselves beneath those red-tiled roofs. As he walked down the Rue de Périgaux, his hand went to his hat, as often as that of the President of the Republic, on his way to review at Loschamps. He was a man of substance and consideration. And he was just forty years of age. And Philly's adored him, and anticipated his commands. She returned with the letter. He danced through it, reading portents aloud. I am sending you a young couple whom I have taken to my heart. They are not predations, they are not married, and they are not lovers. They are Archadians of the pavement, more innocent than doves, and of a ferocious English morality. She is a painter without patrons. He a professor without classes. They are also candidates for happiness performing the novitiate. Later they will take the vows. What does he mean? What vows? Perhaps they are pious people and are going to enter the content, Philly suggested. I could see your father, anti-clerical that he is, interesting himself in little nuns and monks. Yet he and M. Le Cure are good friends. That is because M. Le Cure has much wisdom and no fear. He would have tried to convert Voltaire himself, and let us continue. As they are poor and doing this out of obedience. Stop a lot, he laughed. They seem to have taken the three vows already. He read on. They do not desire the royal suite in your excelsior palace. Coroner Hastings has lived under the roofs in Paris. Martin Overshaw over a baker's shop in a vague quarter of London. All the luxury they ask is to be allowed to wash themselves all over in cold water once a day. I am sure you had not written to my father about the bathroom, said Vadise. She was right, but the admission was odd. For Vigoda took in ultimate pride in the newly installed bathroom, and all the touring clubs of Europe and editors of guidebooks had heard of it, and he had offered it to the admiring inspection of Half-Brunthorne. M. Le Maire himself had visited it, and if he had only arrived girt with the tricolour sash, Vigoda would have jumped in and demanded an inaugural ceremony. I must have forgotten, said Vigoda, but no matter, they can have plenty of cold water. But if I am to feed them and lodge them and wash them for the writhery price your father stipulates, they must learn that six o'clock is the hour of double-do it of the Hotel de Grotte. It is only people in automobiles who can turn the place upside down, and then they have to pay four francs for their dinner. He rose mountainously, and, standing, displayed the figure of a vigorous, huge proportioned upright man. On his face, large and ruddy, a small black moustache struck a startling note. His eyes were brown and kindly, his mouth too small, and his chin had a deep cleft, which on a creature of lesser scale would have been a pleasing dimple. Allons-dinez! said he. In the patriarchal fashion, now unfortunately becoming obsolete, M. Vigoda died with his guests. La Salamorge, off the loggia, was furnished with the long central table sacred to commercial travellers, and with a few side tables for other visitors. At one of these, in the corner between the service-door and the dining-room door, sat M. Vigoda and his niece. As they entered the room, five bag-men, with anticipatory napkins, stuck corner-wise in their collars, half rose from their chairs unbowed. They both swore M. Vigoda, and he passed with feliz to his table. Euphémie, the cook, fat and damp, entered with the soup-turine, followed by a desperate-looking, crop-headed villain bearing plates. The latter, who viewed half a mile off through a telescope, might have passed for an orthodox rater, appeared at close quarters to be raimented in grease and grime. He served the soup, first to the five commercial travellers, and then to Vigoda and Feliz. On Feliz's plate he left a great thumb-mark. She looked at it with an expression of disgust. Regarde, mon oncle. Vigoda, alluding to him as a sacred animal, asked what she could expect. He was from Baudet, a place of rock some five miles distant, condemned by a bon-ton chef-lure du canton. He summoned him. Bollé-d'or. Oui, messieurs. You have made a mistake. You are no longer in the hands of the police. A monsieur veut dire? I am not the commissaire who desires to photograph your fingerprints. Avaudant, said Bollé-d'or, and with a sore napkin he raised the offending stain. Sacre animal! Repeted Vigoda, attacking his soup. I wonder why I keep him. I too, said Feliz. If his grandmother, my grandmother, had not been foster sisters, said Vigoda, waving an indignant spoon, you would have kept him just because he is ugly, smart Feliz. You would have found the reason. One of these days I'll throw him into the river, Vigoda declared. I am patient, I am slow to anger, but when I am roused I am like a lion. Bollé-d'or, said he serenely, as the dilapidated mean you'll remove the plates. If you can't keep your hands clean I'll make you wear gloves. People would love at me, said Bollé-d'or. So much the better, said Vigoda. The meal was nearly over when the expected guests were announced. Uncle and niece slipped from the dining-room into the little vestibule to welcome them. An elderly man in a blouse, named Baptiste, was already busying himself with that luggage. The knapsacks fastened to the back of the bicycles. Mamouselle Monsieur, said Vigoda, it is a great pleasure to me to make friends of my excellent brother-in-law. Allow me to present Mamouselle Feliz for Timbra. He gave the French pronunciation. My niece, as dinner is not yet over and as you must be hungry, will you give yourselves the trouble to enter the salamange? I should like to have a wash first, said Carina. Vigoda glanced at Feliz. They were beginning early. There is a bathroom upstairs fitted with every modern luxury. Carina laughed. I only wanted to tidy up a bit. I will show you to your room, said Feliz, and conducted up the staircase beside the bureau. And Monsieur? Martin went over to the little lover-bow against the wall beside which hung the usual damp towel. This will do quite well, said he. Vigoda breathed again. The new arrivals were quite human, and they spoke French perfectly. The men conversed a while until the two girls descended. Vigoda led his guests into the salamange and installed them at a table by one of the windows looking on the lodgier. Like this, said he, you will be cool and also enjoy the view. I think, said Carina, looking up at him, you have the most delicious little town I have seen in France. Vigoda's eyes beamed with gratification. He bowed and went back to his unfinished meal. Behold over there, said he for the Feliz, a young girl of extraordinary good sense. She is also extremely pretty, a combination which is rare in women. Yes, uncle, said Feliz de Muley. The five commercial travellers rose, and, bowing as they passed their host, went out in search, after the manner of their kind, of coffee and backgummen at the Café de l'Univers in the Rue de Perigure. It is only foreigners who linger over coffee, liqueurs, and tobacco in the little ins of France. Presently, Feliz went off to the bureau to make up the day's accounts, and Vigoda, having smoked a thoughtful cigarette, crossed over to Martin and Carina. After the good hotel-keeper's inquiries to their gastronomic satisfaction, he swept his hand through his inch-high standing stubble of black hair, and addressed Martin. M. Auvert, Auvert, forgive me if I cannot pronounce your name. Auverture, said Martin distinctly. Auverture, Auverture, non, c'est bigré moins difficile. Then called me M. Martin à la Française. And me, M. Carine, laughed Carina. Voila! cried Vigoda, delighted. Those are names familiar to every Frenchman. Then his brow glided. Well, M. Martin, there is something I would say to you. What profession does my good brother-in-law exercise in Paris? Martin and Carina exchanged glances. I scarcely know, said Carina. Nor I, said Martin. It is on account of my niece, his daughter, that I ask. You permit me to sit down for a moment? He drew a chair. You must understand at once, said he, that I have nothing against M. Fortimbrat. I love him like myself. But on the other hand I also love my little niece. She is very simple, very innocent, and does not appreciate the subtleties of the great world. She adores her father. I can quite understand that, said Martin, and I am sure that he adores her. Precisely, said Vigoda. That is why I would like you to have no doubt as to the profession of my brother-in-law. You have never, by any chance, M. Zalkorine, heard him called L'Emotion de Bonheur? Never, said Carina, meeting his eyes. Never, echoed Martin. Not even when he advised you to come here. It is for police, that I ask. No, said Carina. Certainly not, said Martin. But you have heard that he is an avoué. An English solicitor practicing in Paris. Oh, of course, said Martin. A very clever solicitor, said Carina. Vigoda smote his chest with his great hand. I thank you with all my heart for your understanding. You are the first person she has met who know her father. It is somewhat embarrassing, what I say. And she, in her innocence, will ask you questions which he did not foresee. There will be no difficulty in answering them, replied Martin. Encore, merci, said Vigoda. You must know that Feliz came to us at five years old when my poor wife was living. She died ten years ago. I am a widower. She used to me like my own daughter. Although, he added with a smile and a touch of vanity, I am not quite so old as that. My sister, her mother, is older than I. She is alive, then? asked Carina. Certainly, replied Vigoda. Did you not know that? But she has been an invalid for many years. That is why Feliz lives here, instead of with her parents. I hope, members, you and she will be good friends. I am sure we shall, replied Carina. A little while later the two wanderers sat over their coffee by the bad astrade of the covered lodger and looked out on the velvet's night, filled with contentment. They had reached their girl. Here they were to stay, and did it please Fort Imbrass to come and direct them afresh. Here the two, their resting places, mere stages on their journey, had lacked the atmosphere of permanence. The still nights, when they had talked together as now beneath the stars, had throbbed with a certain fever, the anticipation of the morrows dawn, the morrows of ventures in strange lands. But now they had come to their destined haven. Here they would remain to-morrow, and the morrow after that, and for morrows indefinite. A phase of their life had ended with curious suddenness. As the intensity of silence falls on ears accustomed to the word of machinery, so did an intensity of peace encompass their souls. And the dim-lit valley itself brought solace. Not here stretched infinite horizons, but in the distance between the horizons, such as those of the Plains of La Boeus, through which they had passed, horizons when sprang a whole hemisphere of stars, horizons which embracing nothing sets the heart aching for infinite things beyond. Horizons, in the centre of which they stood, specks of despair, overwhelmed by immensities. Here the comfortable land had taken them to its bosom. Near enough to be felt the vague bluish mass of the limousine mountains sweeping from north to east assured them of the calm protection of eternal forces. Beyond them, who need look or crave to look? To the fevered spirit they brought in their mothering shelter, all that was needed by man for his happiness. Fruitfulness of cornfields, mystery of beach-woods faintly revealed by the rays of a young moon. A quiet town for man's untroubled habitation guarded by its inserting river, rather guest than seen, and betrayed only here and there by a streak of quivering light. And as the distant glare of great cities, the lights of London reflected in the heavens, in the days of wandering youths seeking their fortunes, compelled their moth-like to the focus. So in its dreamy microcosm did the lights of the little town, a thousand flickering points from the outskirts, and a line of long illumination marking the main street of wrought the dark mass of roofs, and dissipating itself hazily in mid-air, appeal to the imagination, set it wondering, as to the myriad joyous affairs of men. In low voices they talked of Fortebras. His spirit seemed to have emerged from the welter of Paris into this pool of the world's tranquillity. In spite of his magnetic force, his words had been but words. While they were to meet at Bronton they knew not. They scarce had thought. What to them had been the landlord of a tiny provincial in, but a good-natured common-fellow unworthy of speculation? And what the daughter of the seedy Paris Bohemian, snapper up of unconsidered trifles, but a serving girl of no account, plain and redolent of the scullery? Bigaudard's courteous bearing and delicacy of speech had come upon them as a surprise. So had the refinement of Phidice. They had to readjust their conception of Fortebras. They were amazed, simple souls, to find that he had ties in life so indubitably irrespectable. And he had a wife, too, a chronic enviroment, with whom he lived in the jealous obscurity of Paris. It was pathetic. They had obeyed him, hardly knowing why. At the back of their minds he had been but a charlatan of peculiar originality. At the same time a being almost mythical, so remote from them was his life. And now he became startlingly real. They heard his voice soft and persuasive, whispering by their side with a touch of gentle mockery. Then silence fell upon them. Their minds drifted apart, and they lost themselves in their separate dreams. At last Potidor, coming to remove the coffee tray and to acquire us to their further ones, broke the spell. When he had gone, Coronel leaned her elbow on the little untable and asked, in her direct fashion, What have you been thinking of, Martin? He drew his hand across his eyes, and it was a moment or two before he answered. When I was in London, said he, I seem to have lived in a tiny provincial town. Now that I come to a tiny provincial town I have an odd feeling that the deep life of a great city is before me. That's the best I can do by way of explanation. Forths like that are a bit formless and enusive, you know. What do you think you're going to find here? I don't know. Why not happiness in some form or other? You expect a lot for five rags, she laughed. And you? I? Yes, what have you been thinking of? She pointed, and in the gloom he followed the direction of white-blurred arm and white hand. Do you see that little house on the key, the one with the lights and the lodger? You can just get a glimpse of the interior, see? There's a picture, and below a woman sitting at a piano. If you listen, you can catch the sound. It's Schubert's Bermond Musical. Well, I've been wishing I were that woman with her life full of her home and husband and children. Sheltered, protected, love all around her. Nothing more to ask of God. It was a beautiful dream. You too, said Martin, feel about this place somewhat as I do. I suppose it's the night. It turns one into a sentimental lunatic. Fancy living here for the rest of one's days and concentrating one's soul on human stomachs. What do you mean, Carilla? Isn't that what women's domestic life comes to? She must fill her husband's stomach properly, or he'll beat her or run off with somebody else. And she must fill her baby's stomachs properly, or they'll get cramps and convulsions and bidious attacks and die. It was a beautiful dream. But the reality would drive me sick, stark, staring mad. My ideas of married life, said Martin, sagely, are quite different. Of course, she cried, you're one of the creatures with the stomach. I've never been aware of it, said Martin. It strikes me you're too good for this world, said Carina. Martin rolled a cigarette from a brown packet of Marylamp tobacco, his supply of English wood-binds had long since given out. I have my ideals as to love, and so forth, said he. And so have I. All for love and the world well lost. That's the title of an old play, isn't it? I can understand it. I would give myself for it. But it happens once in a blue moon. Meanwhile one has to live, and canubiality and maternity and a little lost hole in nowhere like this aren't life. Of the Dickens is life, asked Martin. But her definition he did not hear, for the vast figure of big order loomed in the doorway of the Salamange. I wish you good night, said he. Martin rose and looked at his watch. I think it's time to get to bed. And so do I, your Carina.