ixed with straw and studded with cobblestones, has defied
eight centuries. There are no streets wide enough for carts, for they
hark back to the days when donkeys were common carriers. And in
hill-towns the progressive knowledge of centuries has evolved no better
means of transport. You pass through _ruelles_ where outstretched hands
can touch the houses on each side. Often the _ruelle_ is like a tunnel,
for the houses are built right over it on arches, and it is so dark that
you cannot see in front of you. The _abbe_ assured me that there were
house doors all along as in any other passage. People must know by
instinct where to turn in to their houses.

When the _abbe_ left me to go to his lower vesper service, after having
piloted me back to the main streets, I decided to go up again to the
_place_ to rejoin the Artist. But under an old buttonwood tree, which
almost poked its upper branches into the chateau windows, stood
Mademoiselle Simone, waving good-by to another girl who was disappearing
around the corner of a street above. Her aunt, she declared, was waiting
for her at a villa half-way down the hill, at five. Just then five
struck in the clock-tower behind us.

"Had you looked up before you spoke?" I asked.

"Clocks do strike conveniently," she answered.

Although Mademoiselle Simone repulsed firmly my plea that she become my
guide through the other side of the town, where two outlying quarters,
the _abbe_ had said, contained the best of all in old houses, queer
streets and an ivy-covered ruin of a chapel, she lingered to talk under
the buttonwood tree of many things that had nothing to do with Cagnes.
When I tried to persuade her to show me what I had not yet seen, on the
ground that I had made the climb up to the top because of my interest in
hill cities and wanted to write about Cagnes, she immediately answered
that she would not detain me for the world and made a move to keep her
rendezvous with the aunt. So I hastened to contradict myself, and assure
her that I had no interest whatever in Cagnes, that I was stuck here
waiting for the Artist, who would come only with the fading light.

After Mademoiselle Simone left me under the buttonwood tree, I thought of
the Artist. He had finished and was smoking over a glass of vermouth at
one of the tables by the parapet of the _place_.

"Great town," he said. "Bully stuff here. In buildings and villagers
have you found anything as fascinating as tha