My impressions of London were so confused in this early stage of the great European War that I see little gain in attempting to crystallise my feelings into any sort of description. Indeed, I found it well-nigh impossible to attune my own thoughts to the popular attitude of the moment; but then I never ceased to remind myself that of necessity I was detached from a purely patriotic outlook owing to my long residence in Meleager with its consequent effects on a plastic mind that had definitely grown to regard the Earth and all therein as things left behind for evermore. The excited talk and scandal of the hotel corridors, the sheaves of redundant telegrams affixed from time to time on the public screens, the yells of the newsvendors, the headlines of the popular journals announcing English, French, Russian, Belgian and Servian victories in endless succession; the _brouhaha_ of the streets and the gossip of the boudoir, all alike left me cold and phlegmatic. Dr Wayne used to read aloud to me daily from half-a-dozen papers, for I had signally failed to reacquire my long-suspended love of reading; but I was unable to grasp more than the patent fact that the fate of Paris was hanging in the balance:--Paris, the city of light and leadership; Paris the capital of Saint Louis, of Henry of Navarre, of Louis le Roi Soleil, of Napoleon Buonaparte; Paris, the erstwhile acme of my earthly ideals. Doubtless it was my own obliquity and rustiness of mind that caused this lamentable lack of comprehension of the situation as a whole, and prevented me from viewing it through those same rosy glasses of insular humour wherewith the bulk of my countrymen were regarding the trend of passing events on the Continent. I knew myself to be at best an amphibian, with my body on Earth and my heart in Meleager, yet capable of a residence in either planet. I felt lost and lonely in this city of reek and confusion, whose inhabitants probably outnumbered the whole tale of my own forsaken people. After a week or so I ceased to find solace in wandering amid streets and churches and galleries, and spent more hours than ever in musing with my eyes directed towards the river, the shipping and the steeples that clove the hot blue August sky. Dr Wayne meanwhile was busied with many matters, such matters as would presumably engage the attention of a time-expired Indian public servant; and from my peculiar tincture of indifference I was equally resigned to his absence or his presence, provided only he did not desert me, of which contingency I had no fear whatsoever.