He telephoned to say that the French gentleman, who had unexpectedly returned from Bordeaux, had just submitted an offer of fourteen thousand francs. He added that, unless we were prepared to offer a higher rent, it would be his duty to accept that proposal. After a moment's thought, I told him to do his duty and bade him adieu. * * * * * That night was so beautiful that we had the cars open. As we approached the Casino-- "Let's just go up the Boulevard," said Daphne. "This is too lovely to leave." I slowed up, waited for Jonah to come alongside, and then communicated our intention to continue to take the air. The Boulevard being deserted, Ping and Pong proceeded slowly abreast.... A sunset which had hung the sky with rose, painted the mountain-tops and turned the West into a blazing smeltery of dreams, had slowly yielded to a night starlit, velvety, breathless, big with the gentle witchcraft of an amber moon. Nature went masked. The depths upon our left seemed bottomless; a grey flash spoke of the Gave de Pau: beyond, the random rise and fall of a high ridge argued the summit of a gigantic screen--the foothills to wit, odd twinkling points of yellow light, seemingly pendent in the air, marking the farms and villas planted about their flanks. And that is all. A row of poplars, certainly, very correct, very slight, very elegant, by the way that we take for Lourdes--the row of poplars should be recorded; the luminous stars also, and a sweet white glow in the heaven, just where the ridge of the foothills cuts it across--a trick of the moonlight, no doubt.... Sirs, it is no such trick. That misty radiance is the driven snow resting upon the peaks of the Pyrenees. The moon is shining full on them, and, forty miles distant though they are, you see them rendering her light, as will a looking-glass, and by that humble office clothing themselves with unimaginable splendour. As we stole into the Place Royale-- "Every minute," announced Adèle, "I'm more and more thankful that we're quit of the Villa Buichi. We should have been simply mad to have taken a house in the town." "There you are," said Berry. "My very words. Over and over again I insisted----" "If you mean," said Jonah, "that throughout the argument you confined yourself to destructive criticism, deliberate confusion of the issues, and the recommendation of solutions which you knew to be impracticable, I entirely agree." "The trouble with you," said Berry, "is that you don't appreciate the value of controversy. I don't blame you. Considering the backlash in your spinal cord, I think you talk very well. It's only when----" "What exactly," said Adèle, bubbling, "is the value of controversy?"