r siesta had to be reached by going through
ruins and climbing over a dune. The Artist was there.

"You know," he explained, ignoring with the sweep of his hand the Roman
mole where a new bevy of mermaids had appeared, "the progress of aviation
has fascinated me ever since that July day at Rheims when Wright went up
and stayed up. Just look what those fellows are doing!"

Hydroplanes were appearing from the aerodrome. When they struck the
water there was a hiss, which grew in volume and acuity as they skimmed
the waves. After a few hundred yards, the machines rose as easily as
from land, circled up to the clouds and into them. Coming down, the
aviators practiced dipping and swerving by following and avoiding the
purposely irregular course of motor-boats. An officer, who spoke to us
to find out, I suppose, who we were and why we were there, remarked that
the aviators were beginners. We were astonished. If this was learning
to fly, what was flying?

"Our boys need little teaching to learn to fly," he explained. "That
comes naturally. What they are learning is how to use their machines for
fighting. Science and training and practice come in there. A world-old
game is before you. It is only the medium that is new."

Words of wisdom. A bit of aqueduct led us to Frejus in the hope of
tasting the charm of a more ancient past than we had found in other
Riviera cities. We were not disappointed. The charm was there. But we
would not have found it, had we tried to dissociate it from the present,
had we ignored or deplored its setting. Nothing that lives assimilates
what is foreign to its nature: nothing that lives survives dissection.
We took Frejus as Frejus was, and not as we wanted it to be or thought it
must be. We took the aerodrome with the hippodrome, the coal merchant
with the Norman tower, the parrot with the gargoyle, the Hotel de Ville
with the cathedral, and the mermaids with the mole.

CHAPTER XIV

SAINT-RAPHAEL

On the terrace of our little home at Theoule, a lover of the Riviera
read what I had written about Frejus.

"If you have any idea of making a book out of your Riviera articles,"
she said positively, "do not think you can dismiss the Esterel and
Saint-Raphael in so cavalier a fashion. That may be all right for
Lester Hornby and you and serve as a good introduction to a story on
Frejus, but in your project of a book on Riviera towns--"

There is no need to say more. I looked