Something forced me to glance up to the sunny stuccoed walls and snowy-curtained casements of the main hotel building on the left-hand side of the court. A man was leaning out of a second-floor window. When he caught sight of me, he swiftly drew in his head. It was He! My mind made itself up in a moment. I plunged boldly into an extensive and variegated falsehood. I declared that when I telegraphed last night, I didn’t know that some great friends of mine were at the Astor. It was the greatest disappointment to me not to stay, as arranged, at the Cheval d’Or. On my way back to England from Sainte Véronique, I would be sure to pay Madame Legendre at least a week’s visit. Meanwhile, could Madame, as an exceptional favour, allow Pierre to carry us round to the Astor? The long and short of it is that, so far, I have outwitted him; and here I am, spending my first French night in an English hotel. As one might as well be damned for fifty fibs as for one, I have told Madame Legendre that I want to pass all my time with my friends here at the Astor; and that if any one who knows me inquires, ever so pressingly, she isn’t to acknowledge that she has the faintest idea where I’ve gone. She’s promised. As for Pierre, I have bought him body and soul for ten francs, cash down; and if Ruddington begins asking questions he’ll be told that the English lady and her maid have changed their minds and gone on to Paris. Alas, poor dreams! I have just eaten a Paris dinner and have sent it down with London claret. And I’m going to sleep in an English bedroom, instead of in a French one. I did so want a French one, with a curtained bed and a pudgy quilt, and an Empire mirror over the mantelpiece, to say nothing of a gilt clock, and two bronze horses, and four or five nice pious pictures of martyrs all stuck full of arrows. But one can’t have everything; and it’s enough for me that I’ve beaten Ruddington to-day, as I shall beat him to-morrow and every other day until I can believe that he’s something better than a libertine cad. He’s done me one good turn, at any rate. Scribbling down all this has made me deliciously drowsy. So now to make up all those arrears of sleep. _Sunday_, 9 _a.m._ I’ve slept like baby twins. Such a sweet morning! I got up at seven and took Susan with me to Low Mass. The sunlight streaming through the windows of the choir was divine.