f so, whether we wished again to occupy the excellent villa we had.
Not knowing what answer to make to the first question, we had passed to
the second--somewhat illogically. The second had proved more heatedly
disputable than the first. Finally Jill had looked up from a letter to
Piers and put in her oar with a splash.

"The villa's all right," she announced. "Everyone says it's the best,
and so should we, if we didn't live in it. It's what's inside that's
so awful. Even one decent sofa would make all the difference."

In silence we pondered her words.

At length--

"I confess," said Berry, "that the idea of having a few chairs about in
which you can sit continuously for ten minutes, not so much in comfort
as without fear of contracting a bed-sore or necrosis of the coccyx,
appeals to me. Compared with most of the 'sitzplatz' in this here
villa, an ordinary church pew is almost voluptuous. The beastly things
seem designed to promote myalgia."

"Yet they do know," said I. "The French, I mean. Look at their beds."

"Exactly," replied my brother-in-law. "That's the maddening part of
it. Every French bed is an idyll--a poem of repose. The upholsterer
puts his soul into its creation. A born genius, he expresses himself
in beds. The rest of the junk he turns out..." He broke off and
glanced about the room. His eye lighted upon a couch, lozenge-shaped,
hog-backed, featuring the Greek-Key pattern in brown upon a brick-red
ground and surrounded on three sides by a white balustrade some three
inches high. "Just consider that throne. Does it or does it not
suggest collusion between a private-school workshop, a bricklayer's
labourer, and the Berlin branch of the Y.W.C.A.?"

"If," said Daphne, "it was only the chairs, I wouldn't mind. But it's
everything. The sideboard, for instance----"

"Ah," said her husband, "my favourite piece. The idea of a double
cabin-washstand is very beautifully carried out. I'm always expecting
Falcon to press something and a couple of basins to appear. Then we
can wash directly after the asparagus."

"The truth is," said Adele, "these villas are furnished to be let. And
when you've said that, you've said everything."

"I agree," said I. "And if we liked Pau enough to come back next
autumn, the best thing to do is to have a villa of our own. I'm quite
ready to face another three winters here, and, if everyone else is, it
'ld be worth while. As for furniture, we can ea