Molly.

JACK WINSTON TO LORD LANE

Biarritz, _December 11_.

My dear Montie,

I have let you rest a good long time without a letter (not that I've
been taking a rest myself), and now I should think you are opening your
eyes with astonishment at the picture on my paper of a hotel at
beautiful, blowy Biarritz. Thereby hangs a tale of adventure and
misadventure.

No doubt my fair employer believes me at this moment to be consorting
with couriers in the servants hall (if there be one) of her hotel. But,
as usual, I know a trick worth two of that; and having washed his hands
of Brown for the time being, your friend Jack sits smoking his pipe and
writing to you in what is known as the "monkey-house" of this hotel. As
you don't know Biarritz, you'll think that in exchanging all the
comforts of a servants' hall for a monkey-house I am not doing myself as
well as I might. But there are monkey-houses and monkey-houses. This one
is a delightful glass room built on to the front of the hotel, facing a
garden and tennis courts, commanding a glorious view of the sea and also
of every creature, human and inhuman, who goes by. One has tea in the
monkey-house; one writes letters, reads novels, smokes or gossips,
according to sex and inclination; one can also be seen at one's private
avocations by the madding crowd outside the glass house, hence the name.

The air is luminous with sunshine and pungent with ozone. Great green
rollers are marching in, to break in thunder on the beach, and fling
rainbow spouts of spray over tumbled brown rocks. In the distance the
sea has all the colours of a peacock's tail; the world is at its best,
and I ought to be rejoicing in its hospitality; but I'm not. The fact
is, I'm upset in my mind. I'm over head and ears in love, and as there's
no hope of scrambling out again (I'm hanged if I would, even if I could)
or of getting my feet on solid ground, mere beauty of landscape and
seascape appear slightly irrelevant.

I wouldn't bother you with my difficulties, which, I admit, are mostly
my own fault, and serve me right for beginning wrong, but you asked in
your letter if you could help me in any way; and it does help to let off
steam. You are my safety-valve, old man.

You will have had my hasty line from Angouleme (birthplace of
witch-stories and of Miss Randolph's beloved Francis the First) telling
you how we got rid of Eye