'Gone to do his hair'--the phrase came to his mind as he saw the priest walk briskly away, tripping with the old familiar stumble over his soutane, and saw the long wisps faintly red on the black garment. 'Like a woman--exactly!' he uttered in revolt, clenching his hand at man's degradation. 'Like a woman, long hair, long skirt; ready to listen to other people's troubles. Unnatural existence; unnatural? it's unnatural to the point of viciousness. No wonder the man's mind is unhinged.' He was really troubled about his friend, the more so that loyalty would keep him silent and allow him to ask no questions. He thought, however, that if Eve volunteered any remarks about Paul it would not be disloyal to listen. The afternoon was hot and still; Eve would be indoors. The traditions of his English life still clung to him sufficiently to make him chafe vaguely against the idleness of the days; he resented the concession to the climate. A demoralising place. A place where priests let their hair grow long, and went temporarily mad.... He walked in the patchy shade of the lemon-trees towards the house in a distressed and irascible frame of mind. He longed for action; his mind was never content to dwell long unoccupied. He longed for the strife the elections would bring. The house glared very white, and all the green shutters were closed; behind them, he knew, the windows would be closed too. Another contradiction. In England, when one wanted to keep a house cool, one opened the windows wide. He crossed the veranda; the drawing-room was dim and empty. How absurd to paint sham flames on the ceiling in a climate where the last thing one wanted to remember was fire. He called,-- 'Eve!' Silence answered him. A book lying on the floor by the writing-table showed him that she had been in the room; no one else in that house would read Albert Samain. He picked it up and read disgustedly,-- '... Des roses! des roses encore! Je les adore à la souffrance. Elles ont la sombre attirance Des choses qui donnent la mort.' 'Nauseating!' he cried, flinging the book from him. Certainly the book was Eve's. Certainly she had been in the room, for no one else would or could have drawn that mask of a faun on the blotting paper. He looked at it carelessly, then with admiration; what malicious humour she had put into those squinting eyes, that slanting mouth! He turned the blotting paper idly--how like Eve to draw on the blotting paper!--and came on other drawings: a demon, a fantastic castle, a half-obliterated sketch of himself. Once he found his name, in elaborate architectural lettering, repeated all over the page. Then he found a letter of which the three first words: 'Eternal, exasperating Eve!' and the last sentence, ' ... votre réveil qui doit être charmant dans le désordre fantaisiste de votre chambre,' made him shut the blotter in a scurry of discretion.