y responded. She was markedly
sympathetic towards Englishmen, but towards English women--no! And
especially she did not want to know any English women in the same
situation as herself. Lonely? Impossible! Bored? Impossible! She
had an establishment. She had a civil list. Her days passed like an
Arabian dream. She never had an unfilled moment, and when each day was
over she always remembered little things which she had meant to do and
had not found time to do.

She was a superb sleeper, and arose at noon. Three o'clock usually
struck before her day had fairly begun--unless, of course, she
happened to be very busy, in which case she would be ready for contact
with the world at the lunch-hour. Her main occupation was to charm,
allure, and gratify a man; for that she lived. Her distractions were
music, the reading of novels, _Le Journal_, and _Les Grandes Modes_.
And for the war she knitted. In her new situation it was essential
that she should do something for the war. Therefore she knitted, being
a good knitter, and her knitting generally lay about.

She popped into the dining-room to see if the table was well set
for dinner. It was, but in order to show that Marie did not know
everything, she rearranged somewhat the flowers in the central bowl.
Then she returned to the drawing-room, and sat down at the piano and
waited. The instant of arrival approached. Gilbert's punctuality was
absolute, always had been; sometimes it alarmed her. She could not
have to wait more than a minute or two, according to the inexactitude
of her clock.... The bell rang, and simultaneously she began to play a
five-finger exercise. Often in the old life she had executed upon him
this innocent subterfuge, to make him think she practised the piano
to a greater extent than she actually did, that indeed she was always
practising. It never occurred to her that he was not deceived.

Hear Marie fly to the front door! See Christine's face, see her body,
as in her pale, bright gown she peeps round the half-open door of the
drawing-room! She lives, then. Her eyes sparkle for the giver of all
good, for the adored, and her brow is puckered for him, and the jewels
on her hand burn for him, and every pleat of her garments visible and
invisible is pleated for him. She is a child. She has snatched up a
chocolate, and put it between her teeth, and so she offers the half
of it to him, smiling, silent. She is a child, but she is also a woman
intensely skilled in