How sad and exquisitely sweet this loitering is. Our futile topics lend it a melancholy charm. I should like to be able to detain the fleeting moments. We are going up to the house again. I am going away--and I shall never come back. "I don't like our garden any more," Jeannine suddenly declared. "I've not been down into it three times since we got there." "Why not?" "It doesn't belong to us now. The villa is sold." "An accomplished fact?" "Yes, with everything belonging to it. To some Americans, from the first of February." This astonishes me: "As soon as that?" "We had to." "Where are you going to spend the rest of the winter then?" "We shall have to go back to Paris." André seems bored by our pace, which is not lively enough for him. He outstrips us, comes back to fetch us, and covers twice the distance we do. "I am sure he's dying to show me his playground." "Probably," Jeannine acquiesced. We reach a lawn. Here is a piece of ground which has been dug up, and a chalked line. "How far can you jump now, André?" "More than four yards," he exclaims. He leaves his straw hat in our care, goes off to get room, takes a run, and jumps; and immediately turns round, triumphant, the four yards cleared. "Bravo! You are getting on." "Oh, it'll be a long time before I can jump like you." He stops short, biting his lip. Too late. We all three redden, and recall that summer's day when, in compliance with a request from Jeannine, I had taken off my coat, and jumped nearly five yards on the sand. To-day? Alas, to-day! Jeannine points out the croquet lawn to me, in passing. "And what about tennis?" "We've given up playing." I begin to feel slightly tired. Jeannine, who suspects it, slackens her speed again, gracefully and unaffectedly. But it is heart-breaking for me--I who have such a vivid recollection of the rhythm of her usual pace. And had I not seen her at Ballaigues, challenging her brother to race with her, and beating him with ease? The round is finished. We are going in. André proposes: "Suppose we take Mr. Dreher to the Observatory?" "Just what I meant to do," she says. "We'll have a rest--I'm worn out." Is she putting it on, to make me forget my fatigue, or is she really tired out? Her rosy colour has certainly paled very suddenly. Her pure face is troubled, like limpid water which has been agitated. Mounting some steps, we gain a shady retreat, bordering on and overlooking the road. A parasol, three chairs, a seat, an iron railing. Jeannine has dropped into a chair. I have seated myself beside her. Our eyes roam over the stretch of country in front of us. The short January afternoon is already drawing to a close. The sun is sinking behind the islands, which look like deep-sea monsters, with purple scales. The West is bathed in a luminous pallor, even the tracery of the Estérel is hardly discernible out yonder.