sten.

"I didn't have the least desire of getting married when I went to spend
the summer at Etretat two years ago. There is nothing more dangerous than
watering-places. You have no idea how it suits young girls. Paris is the
place for women and the country for young girls.

"Donkey rides, surf-bathing, breakfast on the grass, all these things are
traps set for the marriageable man. And, really, there is nothing
prettier than a child about eighteen, running through a field or picking
flowers along the road.

"I made the acquaintance of an English family who were stopping at the
same hotel where I was. The father looked like those men you see over
there, and the mother was like all other Englishwomen.

"They had two sons, the kind of boys who play rough games with balls,
bats or rackets from morning till night; then came two daughters, the
elder a dry, shrivelled-up Englishwoman, the younger a dream of beauty, a
heavenly blonde. When those chits make up their minds to be pretty, they
are divine. This one had blue eyes, the kind of blue which seems to
contain all the poetry, all the dreams, all the hopes and happiness of
the world!

"What an infinity of dreams is caused by two such eyes! How well they
answer the dim, eternal question of our heart!

"It must not be forgotten either that we Frenchmen adore foreign women.
As soon as we meet a Russian, an Italian, a Swede, a Spaniard, or an
Englishwoman with a pretty face, we immediately fall in love with her. We
enthuse over everything which comes from outside--clothes, hats,
gloves, guns and--women. But what a blunder!

"I believe that that which pleases us in foreign women is their accent.
As soon as a woman speaks our language badly we think she is charming, if
she uses the wrong word she is exquisite and if she jabbers in an
entirely unintelligible jargon, she becomes irresistible.

"My little English girl, Kate, spoke a language to be marvelled at. At
the beginning I could understand nothing, she invented so many new words;
then I fell absolutely in love with this queer, amusing dialect. All
maimed, strange, ridiculous terms became delightful in her mouth. Every
evening, on the terrace of the Casino, we had long conversations which
resembled spoken enigmas.

"I married her! I loved her wildly, as one can only love in a dream. For
true lovers only love a dream which has taken the form of a woman.

"Well, my dear fellow, the most foolish thing I ever did was to