helped to restore confidence
in myself.

The weather was cool and bracing for September, and as we drove in a
motor through the beautiful avenues of the city he pointed out a house
for me on one of the circles, one of those distinguished residences,
instances of a nascent good taste, that are helping to redeem the
polyglot aspect of our national capital. Mr. Watling spoke--rather
tactfully, I thought--of Maude and the children, and ventured the surmise
that they would be returning in a few months. I interpreted this, indeed,
as in rather the nature of a kindly hint that such a procedure would be
wise in view of the larger life now dawning for me, but I made no
comment.... He even sympathized with Nancy Durrett.

"She did the right thing, Hugh," he said, with the admirable casual
manner he possessed of treating subjects which he knew to be delicate.
"Nancy's a fine woman. Poor devil!" This in reference to Ham....

Mr. Watling reassured me on the subject of his own trouble, maintaining
that he had many years left if he took care. He drove me to the station.
I travelled homeward somewhat lifted out of myself by this visit to him;
with some feeling of spaciousness derived from Washington itself, with
its dignified Presidential Mansion among the trees, its granite shaft
drawing the eye upward, with its winged Capitol serene upon the hill.
Should we deliver these heirlooms to the mob? Surely Democracy meant more
than that!

All this time I had been receiving, at intervals, letters from Maude and
the children. Maude's were the letters of a friend, and I found it easy
to convince myself that their tone was genuine, that the separation had
brought contentment to her; and those independent and self-sufficient
elements in her character I admired now rather than deplored. At Etretat,
which she found much to her taste, she was living quietly, but making
friends with some American and English, and one French family of the same
name, Buffon, as the great naturalist. The father was a retired silk
manufacturer; they now resided in Paris, and had been very kind in
helping her to get an apartment in that city for the winter. She had
chosen one on the Avenue Kleber, not far from the Arc. It is interesting,
after her arraignment of me, that she should have taken such pains to
record their daily life for my benefit in her clear, conscientious
handwriting. I beheld Biddy, her dresses tucked above slim little knees,
playing in the sand on