As we enter St.-Amarin, the long, central street is like a pale-blue ribbon, for through it a battalion of some Marseilles regiment is passing. As my eye received it I knew the lovely picture for some bleaching daguerreotype, its color and lineaments to fade in the bright light of peace. We stop a moment at the Administration building and see again M. de Maroussem, to whom, on meeting him first at Madame Galland’s, I had said, “You are an Englishman?” And to those who have frequented international worlds I don’t need to say how he looks. To others I would say that he is tall, blond, athletic, wearing easily a well-cut, not too new uniform, and having a perceptive blue eye (which, however, is really a very French eye when one takes a second look). One would have known that he hunted in England and had polo-ponies in France. In civil life he is a banker. Now among other things he is chef of the St.-Amarin _popote_ and tells me dinner is at 7.45 “tapant.” The hour is near wherein I am to be shown how far superior the St.-Amarin _popote_ is to that of Masevaux. Then the commandant accompanies me to the house of M. Helmer, the well-known Alsatian lawyer who is counsel for the Mission. Also it was he who defended Hansi when he was brought before the German courts and condemned for _lèse-majesté_.[17] From the great bowed window of Madame Helmer’s drawing-room I could look down the suddenly mystical-seeming valley, discerned by the spirit rather than the eye at 4.30 of a November afternoon. It was but a stretch of white filmy substance between violet hills, under a gray-green heaven, with something warm and precious at its western edge. Such a passing of the day as the saints of old would have loved. Hung along the wall opposite the great window are engravings of the Mantegna frieze from Hampton Court, and there were many books. After tea the commandant took his leave and Madame Helmer showed me to my comfortable room where I had thirty saving minutes, horizontal and in the dark, fully conscious, but completely resting, thought consecutive but not active, flowing in a smooth way between banks of quiet nerves in quiet flesh.