id, who had been hiding things
from him. Her eyes, for instance. All this time he had been wondering
about the expression of her eyes.

"And yet you deny the potency of the country," she sighed, "the
miracle-working country, which compels a young man of twenty-seven to
wonder about the expression of an old woman of forty-four."

"Madame," he said, "I am very old. I have ceased to take myself
seriously. You are very young, for you can force others to treat you
with curiosity and respect."

She reminded him that eight minutes ago he had taken himself seriously.
"It was you who made me," he retorted, "you have given me back my
youth."

They went on like that for quite a long time--gallant lawn-tennis--long
base line rallies with an occasional smash. And then he said that he
must be indiscreet--specifically so. Why had she come to St.
Jean-les-Flots?

It was, she explained meditatively, an escape (he noticed that it was
the second time that she had used that word). The Hotel Bungalow was
very clean, the food was good, the air was marvellous....

She pulled herself together.

When you took a holiday, she said, you had to make a careful choice
between old acquaintances and new ones. Which was likely to be the more
tiring? She herself always went to new places at the wrong time of year.
Then it was a case of friendship, or nothing. The people who visited
watering places out of season were always either impossible or
enchanting. Very often amusingly impossible and temporarily enchanting,
but so much the better. There is a certain safety in the transitory.

Is Madame married? Maurice asked abruptly. It was the sort of question
that had to be asked brusquely, or not at all.

"Yes--No--Yes. That is to say, I have a husband. He will probably come
here for a day or two later. He is tres comme il faut."

"Surely you do not blame him for coming to see you."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"It is magnificent, but it is not life. One is not always young enough
to permit oneself these phantasies. At fifty-six it is silly to waste
two days visiting some one you don't want to see. But there, Edmond is
like that. Oh! the stability when he says 'my wife.' It is superb. It
must be grand, too, when he says 'ma maitresse'; he has the property
sense. And how he adores women, woman, all women, any woman. Even
sometimes me. And when he doesn't, he keeps the habits. Toujours des
petits soins. He never goes out of training, even at home