And then, when the boy had come with the weapon, his shrinking eagerness to be abroad with the moonlit serpents was not a match for the languor of his body and mind, and, letting the gun rest against the railing, he lay back again and listened to the night.

A drum was beating in the coolie. range just below, a shallow drum without resonance-putt-putt-putt with a Hindu violin whining into the rhythm for a moment and out again, an orchestration incredibly nerve-strung and vanquished and acquiescent. The violin

ceased. By and by the drum itself was quiet, and very faintly through the palm-fronds the voices of women came up the hill to Pawling's ears, softly modulated, alien, mysterious, bringing him to a strained attention, lifted on an elbow. He did not realize that he was holding his breath till the heart pounding against his ribs began to pain, and then he let it out with a half-scared, "What the devil!"

He sank back and turned his face the other way. He thought of the girl he was going to marry in the far-away north, in the far-away future; the girl he had never seen and of whom he knew only that her eyes and hair were to be dark brown and her neck and arms of a warm, creamy whiteness. Curious and pleasurable speculations floated through his mind. He thought of the coolie girl he had seen that evening by the river. It seemed a very long time at the other end of memory. He could not think precisely how she had looked. Casting back, he was blinded by the sheen of the water, a round apple of vision against which she was but a darker core, escaping him when he tried to take hold of her with his eyes, fading out upon the gold, or retaining substance, but flowing into a hundred dissolving silhouettes, queer, blurred, womanish shapes.

She was so young and yet so oddly mature, and she was the wife of Badhoor. He had never seen a man floggeda naked old man. He lifted suddenly on his hands, for he imagined he had heard footsteps beyond the railing.

The compound seemed empty at first sight, save for the black stripes of the palms running away from the moon. When his eyes had grown more accus

tomed he saw the hemp-seller, strangely mutilated by the shadows, perching on one bird-like leg at the farther edge of the black-and-white pattern, his beard sunk in his neck, his forearms crossed over his breast, motionless, dry, unquestioning.

But it was not Badhoor who had aroused him. It was some one on the steps, mounting toward the veranda. Pawling breathed through his mouth. The soft, laggard footfalls came nearer across the floor and stopped. When he turned his head he saw the girl called Léah standing at the foot of his chair, her head bowed slightly, her forearms crossed over her bosom, motionless, unquestioning, divided between the chill of the moon and the warm flame of the lamp within the house.

Pawling swallowed. He opened his lips and closed them again three or four times. It was absurd. "What are you -what- Why are

It was absurd. He did not want to be taken for a fool, and yet he was a fool, for it should be a simple matter to tell her to go away; it could be done in two words, or one word “Go!”

He lay back with his fingers locked behind his neck and continued to stare at her, still breathing heavily through his mouth. For a moment his mind skipped and he seemed not to be looking at her, but at a hoarding in a new town among the wheat-fields-peeping covertly under his cap across a little waste of cans and ashes at a scene in colors advertising Turkish cigarettes-swinging his schoolbooks as he lagged past, his senses afloat in dim, ecstatic chambers veined with ice and flame. . . . The flame was on his face. . . . He became aware of Tung, the house-boy, crouching in the shadow beyond shadow beyond Clymer's hammock, where he had come without any sound, and he flung a hand at him, savage with irritation:

"Get out of this! Hear me what I say? You, I mean! Good God! Whywhy-why good God! What d'you think-"

It was monstrous, this intrusion. It was an incredible outrage, this gratuitous hanging-about of a serving-man. Pawling felt that he could kill him as he would kill a sand-fly stinging his neck.

He continued to glower and expostulate, "Why-good God!" as the boy retreated into the house and beyond his sight.

Groping for something or other of which he felt the need, he found it in selfpity. Just then he made the discovery that the world had cast him out the people he knew, the civilization and the code of his youth. Once more his imagination ran over the tale of the miles, racing, with a certain obscure aviditythe train miles, the thousands upon thousands of blue sea miles, the river. He felt himself obliterated by space, forgotten by all to whom he might perhaps have been important. The thought came to him that even Clymer, purple, weak-legged Clymer, by the very act of dying, had cast him out. The warm, sweet, heavy air of the river-bush enfolded the exile. . . . He leaned forward and spoke to the girl.

"Look at me," he said.

He saw her eyes lifted, dull with youth, acquiescent, lamb-like.

"Aren't you you—” He began to stammer, not knowing how to finish. "Aren't you afraid-of-of me?"

Her shoulders drew together, and her eyes, abashed that the sahib should take the trouble to address her, sought his boots. She seemed in doubt as to whether she had been commanded to smile for the sahib; her lips curved nervously and drew straight again. Her whole gesture, making a mole-hill out of this mountain of his youth, attacked his integrity as a subtle and potent wine.

"Look at me!" he whispered. His teeth were chattering. "Look at me, I say!"

She did as he bade with the incorruptible docility of a machine, and then her eyes drifted back again to the lighted. doorway and remained there, as if fascinated, her bosom lifting the tight jacket of flame-color in visible and uneven pulsations.

Pawling opened his mouth, and then, without speaking, he closed it again. His face changed color, becoming mottled and sickly. He leaned forward in his chair, quietly, as far as he could, but he could not see. Letting himself back again, he reached out and took the shotgun in his hand. After a moment he got to his feet. When he had reached

half-way to the open door a fit of shivering seized him, so that he had to cling with both hands to the heavy gun, and a cry broke from his lips:

"Tung! Go! If you're there—get away-out of that room- -out of the house-quick! For God's sake—man!"

A shadow flickered across a farther wall, and he heard a door opened and closed. Tears of revulsion poured down his cheeks "What

"Heavens!" he whispered. was I- Heavens!"

He saw the girl in a mist, shaken out of the apathy of her generations, staring at him and his tears. He saw the flowing contours of her neck and her brown shoulder, the golden star-ring in her left nostril, the heavy jewels of her arms and ankles dull in the moonlight; with his breath he took in the faint, mingled exhalations of her clothing, musk, and American rose-water. Sinking down on the foot of the chair, he buried his face in his hands.

"Go away!" he said. "For God's sake, go away!"

He heard her bare soles retreating across the boards. He had been drawn back from the edge of a precipice, and his whole racked nervous fabric cried out for the opiate of prayer. Under the ecstasy of his redemption the devil was made flesh for him in the likeness of Clymer, leering between benignant, purple lids and reiterating: "White-Aryan

Aryan White enough-anyhow

He thrust his hands away and opened his eyes to be rid of that insidious canvassing, and found himself staring at the place on the boards where she had stood. The silence oppressed him. The wall of the dark hemmed him in. He listened to the blood throbbing in his ears like a barbaric drum, boom-boom-boom-boom, like a drum beating from the heart of a waiting and breathless night, "Foolfool-fool-miserable, shivering, cheated

fool!"

He got to his feet and strained his eyes across the maze of the compound, but she was not there. The empty dust mocked him. . . . She had gone very quickly. The thought came to him that she must have run, and after that he wondered whether she would have run from him had he been Tung, the house

boy, the indentured servant, cleaning slops at three shillings the month.. His face grew sick again with jealousy; a blotch of white showed on one cheek as if he had been slapped; his hands wrung the iron barrel of the gun.

He stood quite still, listening. After a moment he turned his eyes downward and to the right, but he could not see through the thick tent of the poinsettias.

He went down the steps with an absurd and elaborate care. A thin froth gathered on his lips and he paused twice, long enough to brush it away with the back of his hand. Gaining the dust at the bottom, he turned toward the corner of the house to the right and stood with his feet planted far apart and his head. thrust forward on his neck.

When the house-boy saw him standing there he took his hands from the girl's head, where they had been resting quietly, palms down, and ran out across the compound. He was a strong fellow and he ran swiftly through the barred light, flickering between the sights on the gunbarrel like a figure on a worn-out cinematograph film.

The compound was full of thunder. The smoke made beautiful flowers for Pawling, blooming one after another in the moonlight. He whispered nonsensical things between the shocks which bruised his shoulder with an exquisite violence.

When he was done, strangely, he felt no horror, no remorse, but rather as if a spring had been released. He seemed born again, into another country. He turned his back on the compound and walked toward the girl, who stood quite still, awaiting him, her hands folded against her bosom..

I met this man Pawling in the second war year. He had been down to Demerara to offer himself for a commission in the local forces, but the examiners had

turned him back on account of his heart and his legs. At the estate of Holy Trinity he was an agreeable and tireless host, making me more than comfortable. When I protested, he protested in turn, telling me with a rare smile that it was a pleasure to see a white man on the river. He was growing rather stout and puffy, but, as I had heard it said in Demerara, and as he told me himself, he had "sent a power of bean down that river, first and last."

During the evening, which we spent on the veranda, I asked him if he had ever thought of going home.

It's

"I used to," he said. "I used to. Yes." He lay in silence for a few moments, watching the river. "Only it's hard to get anybody out here anybody fit for it, I mean a young fellow that will shake down into the berth. not for all. I had a young chap from Vancouver two seasons ago-afraid of snakes-" He was silent again. "I was afraid of 'em myself once," he resumed, preoccupied with memory, “like Adam, I suppose. I got over it, though-like Adam, I suppose.

.

After a little he clapped his hands and, when the mulatto house-boy came on his silent feet, asked me again if I wouldn't "have one."

"No?" he echoed, absent-mindedly. "Well- Cheer-o!"

He re

He carried his liquor well. peated that it was a pleasure to have a white man about a young white man like myself. When I arose to retire he begged me not to go. His speech was becoming just a hint congested. He didn't want me to go. He wanted to shake hands with me, because, as he said, I was white-"damn white"-and so was he. He retained my hand in his soft, perspiring grip, and when I took it away finally he burst out weeping. Even after I had gone into my own room I could hear him beyond the shutters.

HE Riviera belongs to a frontier department. To travel in frontier departments in war time a sauf-conduit is necessary. In theory, the sauf-conduit is good for a single trip and has to be renewed each time one goes from place to place. In theory, wherever a night is spent a permis de séjour must be obtained from the local authorities. In theory, one may not sketch at all. But the Riviera is far from the battle front. Suspicious foreigners were caught in the police drag-net during the first year of the war, and since Italy came in on the side of France the military authorities have not bothered much about enforcing their rules in the Alpes Maritimes. If one takes the initiative and insists upon being always en règle, bureaucracy holds to the strict letter of the law. But one who is not looking for trouble does not find it. Hotel proprietors, all-powerful in Riviera towns, do not want their clients bothered. Public sentiment is with the hotel proprietors, for the prosperity of the Riviera depends upon the unhampered coming and going of tourists and temporary residents. Maires and adjoints and gendarmes and their relatives have villas to let. It is to their interest to minimize red tape. Saufconduits are given for a month, and rarely asked for. The month is up only when one leaves. Permis de séjour are not mentioned unless one makes a protracted stay.

When we decided to settle down in Théoule, and something had to be done with our papers, we were dismayed to discover that the mairie was at Mandelieu, several miles inland. Helen and the children had a passport separate from mine, and our maids were English. Should we all have to "appear in person," as the rule stated? The adjoint at Théoule declared that he could not

think of allowing us to put ourselves out one least little bit, and were not the maids chères alliées? He would give himself the pleasure of taking the passports to Mandelieu to be registered and stamped. In the evening Monsieur l'Adjoint returned with permis de séjour in due form. Then he broached the subject near his heart. We were a large family and would tire of the hotel. The children needed a garden of their own to play in. The villa we wanted was waiting for us. It was right on the sea, and the view from the terrace-well, we could judge for ourselves to-morrow morning.

This was going a little too fast. The obligation of having papers expeditiously arranged was a great one, but we did not care to spend two or three months paying it off. We made an appointment for after lunch the next day, in order to have the morning to look over villas independently. Luckily Monsieur l'Adjoint's villa seemed all that he claimed it to be, and before our rendezvous with him we had decided that the location was ideal.

From Cannes to Mentone the Riviera is cursed with electric tram-lines. Only on Cap Martin can you live away from the shrieking of wheels around curves and the clanging of motormen's bells. We were led beyond Cannes to the Corniche de l'Esterel by the absence of a tramline. We could not get away from the railway, however, without abandoning the coast. Is there any place desirable for living purposes in which the railway does not obtrude? When choosing a country residence, men with families, unless they have several motors and several chauffeurs, must stick close to the railway. Monsieur l'Adjoint was showing us the salon of his villa when a whistle announced the Vintimille express. He hastened to anticipate the train by reassuring us that there was a deep cut back of the villa and that the

road-bed veered away from us just at the corner of the garden. It was in the neighboring villa that trains were really heard. We were to believe him-at that moment chandeliers and windows and two vases of dried grass on the mantelpiece danced a passing greeting to the train. Monsieur l'Adjoint thought that he had failed to carry the day. But we live on a Paris boulevard, and know that noises are comparative. Vintimille expresses were not going to pass all the time.

We were glad that the railway had not deterred us. It was good to be right above the water. Some people do not like the glare of sun reflected from the sea. But they are late risers. Parents of small children are accustomed to waking with the sun. On the first morning in the Villa Étoile the baby chuckled early. Sun spots were dancing on the ceiling, and she was watching them. The breakfast on the terrace was no hurried swallowing of a cup of coffee with eyes fixed upon a newspaper propped against a sugar-bowl.

recurring interest, they are seldom lived up to. When promises are difficult to keep, where are the men of their word? Doing what one does not want to do is a sad business. That is why Puritanism is associated with gloom. On the terrace of the Villa Étoile no man could want to

But

The agreement of the day before had been tripartite. The proprietor was easily satisfied with bank-notes. But the wife had not consented to leave the freedom of the hotel until it had been solemnly agreed that newspapers were to be refused entrance into the Villa Étoile, and that watches were not to be drawn (even furtively) from waitscoat pockets.

Unless agreements are fortified by favorable circumstances and constantly

VOL. CXXXVI.-No. 813.-55

look at a newspaper or a watch. Across the Gulf of La Napoule lies Cannes. Beyond Cannes is the Cap d'Antibes. Mountains, covered with snow and coming down to the sea in successive chains, form the eastern horizon. Inland, Grasse is nestled close under them. Seaward, the Iles de Lérins seem to float upon the water. For on SainteMarguerite the line of demarcation between Mediterranean blue and forest green is sharp, and Saint-Honorat, dom