he short, solitary
figure of a man prowled the beach. He was hatless and insane with rage.
In one hand he gripped an empty sock. He would halt now and then and
wave his long, ape-like arms--cursing the deep strip of sea water that
prevented him from crossing to the hard desert of sand beyond--far out
upon which lay an upturned _gabion_. Within this locked and stranded
box lay two dead bodies. Crabs fought their way eagerly through the
cracks of the water-sprung door, and over it, breasting the salt breeze,
slowly circled a cormorant--curious and amazed at so strange a thing at
low tide.

[Illustration: the upturned gabion]

* * * * *

[Illustration: game birds on the marsh]

CHAPTER TWELVE

MIDWINTER FLIGHTS

One dines there much too well.

This snug Restaurant des Rois stands back from the grand boulevard in a
slit of a street so that its ancient windows peer out askance at the gay
life streaming by the corner.

The burgundy at "Les Rois" warms the soul, and the Chablis! Ah! where
else in all Paris is there such Chablis? golden, sound and clear as
topaz. Chablis, I hold, should be drank by some merry blonde whose heart
is light; Burgundy by a brunette in a temper.

The small cafe on the ground floor is painted white, relieved by a
frieze of gilded garlands and topped by a ceiling frescoed with rosy
nymphs romping in a smoked turquoise sky.

Between five and seven o'clock these midwinter afternoons the cafe is
filled with its _habitues_--distinguished old Frenchmen, who sip their
absinthe leisurely enough to glance over the leading articles in the
conservative _Temps_ or the slightly gayer _Figaro_. Upstairs, by means
of a spiral stairway, is a labyrinth of narrow, low-ceiled corridors
leading to half a dozen stuffy little _cabinets particuliers_, about
whose faded lambrequins and green velveted chairs there still lurks the
scent of perfumes once in vogue with the gallants, beaux and belles of
the Second Empire.

Alice de Breville, Tanrade, and myself, are dining to-night in one of
these _intime_ little rooms. The third to the left down the corridor.

_Sapristi!_ what a change in Tanrade. He is becoming a responsible
person---he has even grown neat and punctual--he who used to pound at
the door of my house abandoned by the marsh at Pont du Sable, an hour
late for dinner, dressed in a fisherman's sea-going overalls of brown
canvas, a pair of sabots an