always pleasant to look upon. I was saying that I still remember our talk as we passed that eucalyptus tree. Doris had begun one of those little confessions which are so interesting, and which one hears only from a woman one is making love to, which probably would not interest us were we to hear them from any one else. It delighted me to hear Doris say: "This is the first time I have ever lived alone, that I have ever been free from questions. It was a pleasure to remember suddenly as I was dressing that no one would ask me where I was going, that I was just like a bird by myself, free to spring off the branch and to fly. At home there are always people round one; somebody is in the dining-room, somebody is in the drawing-room; and if one goes down the passage with one's hat on there is always somebody to ask where one is going, and if you say you don't know they say, 'Are you going to the right or to the left, because if you are going to the left I should like you to stop at the apothecary's and to ask----?'" How I agreed with her! Family life I said degrades the individual, and is only less harmful than socialism, because one can escape from it.... "But, Doris, you're not ill! You are looking better." "I weighed this morning, and I have gone up two pounds. You see I am amused, and a woman's health is mainly a question whether she is amused, whether somebody is making love to her." "Making love! Doris, dear, there is no chance of making love to anybody here. That is the only fault I find with the place; the sea, the bay, the hill towns, everything I see is perfect in every detail, only the essential is lacking. I was thinking, Doris, that for the sake of your health we might go and spend a few days at Florac." "My dear, it would be impossible. Everybody would know that I had been there." "Maybe, but I don't agree. However, I am glad that you have gone up two pounds.... I am sure that what you need is mountain air. The seaside is no good at all for nerves. I have a friend in Paris who suffers from nerves and has to go every year to Switzerland to climb the Matterhorn." "The Matterhorn!" "Well, the Matterhorn or Mont Blanc; he has to climb mountains, glaciers, something of that kind. I remember last year I wrote to him saying that I did not understand the three past tenses in French, and would he explain why--something, I have forgotten what--and he answered: 'Avec mes pieds sur des glaciers je ne puis m'arrêter pour vous expliquer les trois passés.'" Doris laughed and was interested, for I had introduced her some years ago to the man who had written this letter; and then we discussed the _fussent_ and the _eussent, été_, and when our language of the French Grammar was exhausted we returned to the point whence we had come, whether it was possible to persuade Doris to pass three days in the hotel at Florac--in the interests of her health, of course.