At last we came to Moret on the border of the great forest of Fontainebleau. It had been our intention to push on and sleep at Barbizon, but we had loitered by the way, and at the little Hotel de la Palette, they told us the road was too long for an afternoon’s comfort. So there we stopped, to stroll away some hours in the forest and get an early start in the morning. They gave us two garret rooms, for the hotel was crowded with art students and the better part was filled. I recall how the bare walls were covered with sketches and caricatures. There was a particularly bizarre sunset painted on the door between our rooms. Lunch finished, we started for the forest. We came presently to a hill-top, with an outlook over the ocean of tree-tops, the gray donjon keep of Moret to the north. Suzanne as was her custom, threw herself face down in the long grass. I seem to hold no sharper memory of her than in this pose. I sat beside her, admiring. Suddenly she looked up. "Tomorrow night Barbizon," she said, "the next day Paris and our jaunt is over." She looked off down a long vista between the trees. I do not know what she saw there. But no matter which way I looked, I saw a cloud of tiny bits of paper, fluttering into a waste-paper basket. "And then," I said, "a certain iniquitous treaty of peace will be torn into shreds." My pipe had burned out before she spoke again. Her words when they did come were utterly foreign to my dreaming. "Why did you write that kind of a book?" There was earnest condemnation in her voice. To gain time, I asked. "You don’t like it?" "Of course not. It’s insincere." I filled my pipe before I took up the challenge. "You’ll have to make your bill of indictment more detailed. What’s insincere about it?" "You know as well as I do." Never in any of our talks did she give me so vivid an impression of earnestness. With a sudden twist she sat up and faced me. "It’s cynical. There are two parts to the book—exposition and conclusions. The conclusions are pitiable. You suggest a program of reforms in the judicial and penal system. And they are petty—if they were all accepted, it wouldn’t solve the problem of crime. You imply one of two things, either that these reforms would solve the problem, which they wouldn’t, or that the problem is insoluble, which it isn’t." "Count one," I said. "Pleading deferred." "And then—this is worse—you know there is no more chance of these reforms being granted under our present system, than of arithmetic being reformed to make two and two five." "Count two. Not guilty." "No jury would acquit you on it. But there’s a third count—perhaps the worst of all. The book is horribly superficial. Hidden away in your preface you mention the fact that the worst crimes against society are not mentioned in the code. You gently hint that some Wall Street transactions are larcenous, even if they are not illegal. All hidden in your preface!"