Art. But has he
not compensations?

"We went over to their living rooms next to the workshops and
D'Aubigne made tea. I said it was a splendid thing and he ought
to be awfully bucked up at having achieved such a success. He
shrugged his shoulders. 'I am depressed,' he said. 'This
country,' and he waved his hand towards the landscape outside,
'is very depressing. Earth, sea, and sky. Earth, sea, and sky.
Nothing else. Flat, primitive like the day after Creation.
Look!' He pointed to where a barge, brought up on the tide, lay
stranded in a field of shining mud. 'That is the Ark, but Noah
and all the animals save we are dead. I have none of the
Dutchman's love for dikes and canals. I shall go to the
Mediterranean.' 'And Carville?' I said. He cackled. 'Carville
will go to the devil, I suppose. You are to blame. You have
recalled memories, I understand. He talks to me of Rosa. Rosa! I
am sick of the name. You would think he had learned that women
are all the same. No. He has the profound illusion. He is
enchanted. Rosa!'

* * * * *

"Of course, you must take all this with reserve. D'Aubigne,
being artist and man of science, has a vivid imagination. But he
understands Carville, and appreciates the difference between him
and the average libertine. With Carville it is always a _grande
affaire_. For the time, as D'Aubigne quaintly puts it, his love
is like a red, red rose. And I relate my adventures to you
because you have roused my interest in your neighbours and it is
only fair for me to reciprocate.

"If it doesn't get lost on the way there is a small package
coming by this mail. Bon Noel! And, by the way, you will see on
the margin of the etching I send you a small sketch of
Carville's head. What do you think of it? He came in while I was
pulling a proof of this plate and looked at it curiously. 'My
smash?' he inquired, and I said, 'Yes, your smash, old chap. How
do you like it?' And he asked me, as he often does, 'Why do you
_do_ it?' He seems to have some sense missing in his make-up. He
can't coordinate the actions of men. Perhaps that is the key to
his character. D'Aubigne, who used to paint, as a student, vast
canvases depicting Prehistoric Man fighting a mammoth, or
Perseus chopping up Gorgons