A certain spasmodic sociability flickers through the small English colony, consisting, as most of our Continental colonies do, of military men and retired civil servants suffering either from slender purses or unsatisfactory lungs. Among these the advent of the three ladies caused a distinct flutter, and I have reason to believe that several dresses, and not a few bonnets, were subsequently rebuilt upon new and approved lines.
The flutter was scarcely reciprocal. Brenda was not at this period inclined to indiscriminate sociability. She was in a critical frame of mind, and the intellectual standard of the average Briton residing abroad will not bear criticism. Alice found the retired civil servants intolerably trivial and dull. The old soldiers were men of a bygone day when the army had not gone to the dogs, which departure seemed to date from the time of their several resignations.
Mrs. Wylie noted these things, and took them with her usual placid cheerfulness. She had not expected much, and was in nowise disappointed—the blessed privilege of pessimists. She looked upon the three weeks spent at Arcachon as an unpleasant interlude, necessary and unavoidable, and while there made herself as comfortable as circumstances allowed, according to her wont.
Thus Christmas with its forced festivity was tided over. I sometimes wonder why that happy season in each recurring year stands out upon the road of life like public-houses on the roads we tread here below. Wise men direct Jehu by the Spotted Dog or the Marquis of Granby, and I think most of us divide our journey into stages (some consciously, others without realizing it), marked and defined by the Christmas Day at the end of each. It is the 25th of December that stands clearly marked in my memory as having been passed in some outlying corner of the world in each successive year. There is no record of the 24th or the 26th. Having devoted some thought to this matter, I have concluded that the memory is closely connected with the appetite. There are certain dishes set apart for consumption on Christmas Day, and the absence or presence in perfection of these remains indelibly engraved on the mind.
It must be confessed that the Christmas spent at Arcachon by the three ladies was not of a very festive character; but it should be remembered that two of them were widows, and the third a thoughtful young person of by no means a gay and lightsome heart.
Early in January they turned their faces homeward, and by mutual tacit consent parted company in Paris. It happened that Alice Huston met some friends there, who pressed her to stay on with them, pleading to Mrs. Wylie that a change would be beneficial to the spirits of the young widow. Brenda returned to Suffolk Mansions with the Admiral’s widow.
VI
Theodore Trist Is Aroused
In a quiet street leading out of the Boulevard de la Madeleine, there is a large red-stone house with golden letters, each the size of a man, between the windows of the second and third floors. These letters spell a three-syllabled word, which is known in all the civilized world as the name of the greatest journal in France. For steadiness there is no newspaper in all the new republic to rival it. No false news was ever published within the walls of that red-stone house, nor sent forth to the French-speaking world from its portals. Its correspondence is conducted with that apparent lavishness which is the secret of successful journalism in these days. Good pay to good men is a motto that might well be inscribed in golden letters beneath the window of the second floor. There is upon the first story of this house a large room furnished somewhat in the style adopted by English clubs. That is to say, the chairs, tables, and bookcases are of a heavier type than is usually found in private houses. Unlike most French rooms the floor is entirely covered with a Brussels carpet. There are several small oak tables furnished with blotting-pad, inkstand, and pen-tray. I regret to say that cigarette-ash and cigarette ends are habitually thrown upon the floor, although numerous receptacles are provided on the larger table standing in the centre of the room.
This apartment serves as an anteroom to the offices of the editor and subeditor, and on some days in the week there may be seen an assembly of all that there is of journalistic and literary talent in France.
One evening in January, Theodore Trist was standing near the huge white-china stove talking with a group of long-haired confrères of the ready pen. They were laughing—not in that airy, careless way which is generally considered by Englishmen as the prerogative of their Gallic cousins—but softly, and without much genuine amusement. There were others in the room, seated at the smaller tables, writing, which would account for the lowered tones of the group round the stove.
Presently a liveried servant came towards them.
“Monsieur Trist,” he ventured, standing at a respectful distance from the brilliant group.
A silence fell over the talkers, while Theo Trist turned and asked by whom he was wanted.
“It is,” replied the servant, “a portier of the Hôtel Bristol, inquiring if monsieur was in Paris at present.”
“And you said … ?”
“I said that I would inquire.”
A young Frenchman, whose poems were charming all readers just then, laughed merrily.
“Jules,” he said, with a sly glance towards the Englishman, “is discreet.”
“It would never do,” interpolated an older man, with grave approval, “if Jules were not so. This is the home of discretion. Who knows that this portier is a
