What will he do? I hardly think he’ll descend upon Sainte Véronique till his mystical Susan’s sacrosanct week of retreat has expired. I suppose he’ll hover ridiculously in the neighbourhood, like a knight keeping vigil outside a woodland oratory where his milk-white ladye kneels at prayer. Probably there will be a mysterious succession of leaves and petals in otherwise empty envelopes--a scarlet-runner to mean "I have come post-haste," a convolvulus to mean "I am still hanging on," a thorny bramble to mean "I suffer." Even the ardours of a lover ought not to burn out the instincts of a gentleman. I gave Ruddington credit for more decency and restraint. When the week is over, he will want to come here. It is an intolerable position. I am about to be made a fool of. Everybody will get to hear of it some day. Ought I to wire for Alice? No, I can’t. If it were anybody but Ruddington, I could. I’m like a poor hunted beast in a trap, with no way to turn. I have more than half a mind to pack up at daybreak and to slip stealthily back to Dieppe for my promised week at the Cheval d’Or. _Wednesday, very early_. I forgot to wind up my watch. I have decided not to run away. Three things have become clear as I have turned them over in the night. First, I’m as good a man as Ruddington. If I stood up to Mr. John Lamb, I can stand up to his successors. He shall either treat me with respect or be taught a lesson. I’m not going to run away from any one. Certainly not from a youth sick with calf-love who babbles the Language of Flowers. Second, I might as well face the fact that the gods never intended me to have a peaceful September this year. How true it is that the unexpected happens! When I came to Sainte Véronique twelve months ago, I expected to have a lively time. But everybody failed me, and it was the quietest, peacefullest month of my life. This year I came expecting four weeks of vegetable existence; and instead, I am kept running and leaping and turning like a trick-horse in a circus. Wherefore, I do hereby decide not to kick against Destiny a minute longer. Instead of staving off all this comedy, and instead of hating it because it distracts me, I hereby decide that it is well worth looking at, and that it would be foolishness to brush aside such a human drama as I am never likely to see performed again. Norman villages, and carafes of cider, and plunges in the sea, and lobster salads under apple-trees, can be bought for nine or ten francs a day, year after year, as often as I want them. But a handsome, virtuous, learned, stark-mad young lord in love with a pretty, honest, lovable, stupid lady’s-maid isn’t a sight to be seen at close quarters every week. It shall be the principal pleasure as well as the principal business of my remaining fortnight to see this play played right out.