twenty would seem old to Marie Aimee. Probably the lady was on that
exquisite frontier line, the early thirties, when the bud is already
unfurling its petals, angles have softened into curves, and the
significant is stirring in everything like a quickening child. Thirty,
the age of delicate response, of subtle tasting, divorced equally from
the ignorant impetuosity of youth and the desperate clutchings of middle
age. How he disliked young girls with their sunburn, their manly
strides, their meaningless giggles, their eternal nicknames! And, over
their heads, a warning and a trade mark, that sword of
Damocles--marriage.

Maurice was feeling a little happier. As he walked into lunch he felt a
real twinge of curiosity. Ridiculous it was--why he was getting quite
romantic, imagining an exquisite creature on a holiday from her husband.
That was no doubt the result of the Hotel Bungalow. On the velvet lawn
with the cedar, the rose garden, the sun dial and the iced lemonade, he
would have been enjoying to the full his usual ironic detachment, but
St. Jean-les-Flots would throw any one to romance.

He walked into the dining room. At the far end with her back to him sat
the lady. She wore a white coat embroidered with black, a white skirt, a
white hat with a white lace veil. On the chair beside her lay a Holland
sunshade lined with green. It was he thought, deplorable, and indicated
yellow spectacles. Her feet were very small and gave you the impression
of an insecure foundation to her body. Her back was broad. She was
certainly over forty. Forty, thought Maurice, the dangerous age--the
desperate age. From forty to fifty, the flower in full bloom, the period
of engulfing passions, of urgent transitory satisfactions. For how many
women must it not be a ten years' death struggle.

"What a place," Maurice was disgusted; "it is driving me to melodrama."

The lady got up with a certain waddling stateliness (perhaps after all
she was fifty). Her clothes fell into perfection--she walked slowly and
calmly with appraising steps. The lace veil was over her face. She did
not forget her sunshade, her bag, or her handkerchief. Louis, the
waiter, opened the door for her. She sailed out like a gondola on the
stage, or Lohengrin's swan. Her movements gave an effect of invisible
wheels.

During the afternoon she remained undetectable, which was a tour de
force at St. Jean-les-Flots, where the landscape was a successful
conspiracy against c