THE CITY 
 dF LIGHT 
 
 BY 
 
 W:L€iEORGE 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE 
 
 Joseph Whitmore Barry 
 
 DRAMATIC LIBRARY 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 TWO FRIENDS 
 
 OF Cornell University 
 1934 
 
Cornelt University Library 
 PR 6013.E628C5 
 
 The city of light; a novel of modern Pari 
 
 3 1924 013 616 838 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013616838 
 
UNOBTAINABLE AT THE LIBRARIE S. 
 AN APPEAL FOR JUSTICE 
 
 would be an alternative title for 
 
 A BED OF ROSES 
 
 By W. L. GEOEGSl. aotli, 6s. 
 
 A Novel of passion and suffering that stirs hearb 
 
 mind and' soul. 
 
 The Times says— "Tliis is a novel oFtandeniable ii&i^t and cousiderable 
 litCTaiy skdl," ' '•' 
 
 The Dajit Nkws says— "A sincere attack on the world of desire. Tho 
 oatlior is troubled because the world is a -wildemess of economic wrongs wbicli 
 drive women into the p^ces of Aholab and Aholibah in search of eoouomie 
 beeSfsm. , . . . A powerful and earnest 'novel of ideas' .... a book for 
 serious people. Kot for fools. - 
 
 Obtainable at all prmeipal booktplheff^t not at the Ubrariet. 
 
THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
BY THE 
 
 SAME AUTHOR 
 
 Political and Economic Works 
 
 ENGINES OF 
 
 SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 FRANCE IN 
 
 THE TWENTIETH 
 
 CENTURY 
 
 
 LABOUR AND 
 
 HOUSING AT PORT 
 
 SUNLIGHT 
 
 
 
 Novel 
 
 A BED OF ROSES 
 
THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 A NOVEL OF MODERN PARIS 
 
 ^ 
 
 W. L. GEORGE 
 
 LONDON 
 
 CONSTABLE & COMPANY Ltd 
 
 1912 
 
Richard CLay & Sons, Limited, 
 
 BRUNSWICK STREET, STAMFORD STREBT, S 
 AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK, 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART I 
 
 I LA FAMILLE DUVERNOY 
 
 II PETIT DINER SANS CEREMONIE 
 
 III PARIS LA NUIT . 
 
 IV LE SPOR' .... 
 
 V l'amour .... 
 
 3 
 
 23 
 41 
 
 59 
 82 
 
 PART II 
 
 I TOUR DE VALSE CHEZ MADAME BERNAY 
 
 II FACE A FACE 
 
 III BATAILLE 
 
 IV ARMISTICE . 
 V PARIS-SUR-MER 
 
 VI VINGT-CINQ ANS 
 
 111 
 136 
 
 182 
 206 
 238 
 
 PART III 
 
 I TROIS ANS APRES 2 53 
 
 II LA FORTUNE 267 
 
 III DIPLOMATIE 293 
 
 IV ENCHAiNE 3^3 
 
 V LA DEBACLE 333 
 
PART I 
 
CHAPTER THE FIRST 
 
 LA FAMILLE DUVERNOY 
 I 
 
 "But do hurry, Marie," said Madame Duvernoy, 
 "do you not see Monsieur Duvernoy has only just 
 time to lunch ! " 
 
 "I am hurrying, Madame, I am hurrying," replied 
 Marie without animation. "Besides, what does it 
 matter ? Monsieur Duvernoy is always late." 
 
 Marie took the cover off the dish. A thin cloud of 
 steam carried a strong smell of fried fish into the air. 
 
 "Ah, really, he is exasperating, papa" said a young 
 man peevishly. He unfolded his napkin, laid it 
 across his knees and placed upon the cloth his well- 
 tended hands. The linen was fine, but had not the 
 hard marble-like polish an English washerwoman 
 alone can give it. It was not an elaborate table. 
 Beyond the necessary spoons and knives and forks, 
 it bore no bravery of plate, unless a silver bread 
 basket and an unassuming cruet could be counted as 
 such. A decanter of red wine stood at one end of 
 the oval table by the side of a water jug, while at the 
 other, near the vacant seat, was a salad bowl full of 
 undressed salad. The dish now stood steaming on 
 a plain rush mat; there was no table centre; there 
 were no flowers, nor gleaming salt cellars, nor relays 
 
 B 2 3 
 
4 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 of unnecessary spoons, which all tend to make in 
 more ostentatious England a chorus for the leading 
 dishes. Indeed, if one had not felt that all was good, 
 the linen aged but hale, the plate tried, the fish delici- 
 ously yellow and gleaming, bathed on every side by 
 a film of transparent butter, the effect would have 
 been poor. As it was the meal seemed simple, devoid 
 of affectations; indeed it had none, was more like a 
 healthy child than a woman desirous of pleasing. 
 
 The room itself was at one with the table. A 
 high brown china stove let into the wall and bound 
 with copper bands radiated no heat that day, for 
 April blew balmy; it served as a mantelpiece on 
 which stood, between dark bronze vases, ai delicate 
 little gilt clock. On that clock languished a shep- 
 herdess overcome by megrims and the presence of a 
 bowing marquis. The little clock struck twelve in 
 a tinkling, faded voice, as if crushed by the solidity 
 of the twentieth century, by the massive sideboard 
 opposite. This was a towering mass of walnut, the 
 base of which was crowded with pillars that grudg- 
 ingly gave way to polished panels ; it blazed with the 
 goodly air of wood that wax and wear have yellowed. 
 Above, -behind two glass doors and shrouded by 
 blue tulle curtains, could be seen a silver tea-set. 
 At regular intervals round the room were marshalled 
 chairs, the design of which followed that of the tiny 
 colonnade above the sideboard. The suite was de- 
 finitely the "Henri II suite " ; no artist had honoured 
 it with a thought, but it was the work of a good crafts- 
 man. A carpet of neutral tints allowed much of the 
 glittering parquet floor to be seen, while across the 
 yard, through the window curtains, appeared the 
 kitchen of the neighbouring flat ; fleeting shadows, a 
 
LA FAMILLE DUVERNOY 5 
 
 maid, a butler with bushy whiskers, passed at times 
 across the curtains. Down in the yard a dog barked 
 shrilly, mingling his voice with the cries from the 
 kitchen and the loud splashing noises made by a 
 coachman as he washed his master's coup^. 
 
 "I told you so," remarked Marie, from the side. 
 '*Ah, Monsieur Duvernoy, he is so agitated. . . ." 
 
 "That'll do, Marie," snapped Madame Duvernoy. 
 "Henri, go and tell your father. . . ." 
 
 But Monsieur Duvernoy had appeared, irrupted into 
 the room. He came with a great air of business, a 
 little grey man, already somewhat bald, with nervous 
 hands and an agitated frown, as if he carried many 
 cares and was inflated by their importance. He cast 
 around him sharp blue eyes, restlessly twirled his 
 grey moustache over his thin mouth; indeed he 
 brought in with him an atmosphere of unrest, seemed 
 spontaneously to disturb the quietude of his house- 
 hold's expectancy as if he were a transient puff of 
 wind blowing open a door that was ajar. But all 
 of him was in himself, uncorrected with his sur* 
 roundings. He was a desperately busy little man, 
 desperately intent upon some minor task, like an artt 
 who with tiny muscles hugely tugs at a microscopic 
 egg. He sat down at the table, seized his napkin and 
 tucked it into his collar. 
 
 "Never ready, never ready," he grumbled. 
 
 "Well, I like that. . . . But, papa. . . . Oh, 
 Monsieur" burst from the aggrieved parties. 
 
 "And you know I only have half-an-hour," snapped 
 Monsieur Duvernoy. 
 
 "Oh, you'll have time enough. Monsieur Bernay 
 can wait," said Madame Duvernoy. "It'll give him 
 a higher idea of your value. He'll say : ' This Monsjeyr 
 
6 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 Duvernoy, he is overloaded, people tear him from 
 one another's hands.' Besides, it's true, mon ami. 
 
 Monsieur Duvernoy smiled at the gentle flattery, 
 not with the benignity of the amiable cynic who 
 watches himself being managed, but widely, as it 
 acknowledging a palatable truth. He had, when he 
 smiled, a pleasant thin face, and his eyes were 
 agreeably blue. ^^ 
 
 "I suppose you are going to settle the business, 
 
 remarked Henri. 
 
 "Very likely," said his father. He had suddenly 
 grown curt; the intervention of his sedate son was 
 as unwelcome as his wife's was natural. He had no 
 respect for him, though he was armed with full degrees 
 and already earned a salary in a solicitor's office. 
 "All well at the etude?" 
 
 "Oui, pafa," said Henri meekly, "but it's not very 
 amusing." 
 
 "Well, my child, you're not in the law to amuse 
 yourself," said Madame Duvernoy, with a touch of 
 acerbity. "You must be serieux, you must make 
 yourself a position. You young men, you think of 
 nothing but pleasure." 
 
 She cast a stern look at the young man, but her 
 rather domineering mouth relaxed and something very 
 soft seemed to mix with the sternness. She watched 
 him, thinking how nicely he ate, how trim his hands 
 were, how well the English tailor's new suit fitted 
 a figure which in parts was a little rotund. At last 
 she summed him up as a very handsome young man. 
 Henri sat, slightly snubbed, his underlip protruding 
 a little as would that of a pouting child. He was 
 neither tall nor short, broad-shouldered, rather un- 
 gainly, perhaps, about the hips. He had an open 
 
LA FAMILLE DUVERNOY 7 
 
 kindly face, with astonished blue eyes, eyebrows too 
 faint to throw a shade over their slight prominence; 
 his nose was straight, rather thick, as was also his 
 red full mouth. Henri's mouth was Henri : it was 
 so healthy, so fresh, girlish almost, and girlish too 
 in its pleasant irresolute curves which a thin thread 
 of golden moustache did not entirely virilise. His 
 light-brown hair waved alway from his broad fore- 
 head with a regularity that suggested cosmetics. 
 
 "You are wearing your new suit, Henri," remarked 
 Madame Duvernoy. "Certainly it is a success, isn't 
 it, Jules?" 
 
 Monsieur Duvernoy looked up from his plate and 
 pretended to consider Henri with immense care. 
 
 "Pas mal, pas mal," he said ironically, "Monsieur 
 is the dandy of the office. You should have been a 
 costumier, Henri, not a grave lawyer." Monsieur 
 Duvernoy's thin face changed as he grew sardonic. 
 The blue eyes were steelier than his son's; the grey 
 moustache curled with his lip. 
 
 Henri blushed ; his parents' attentions embarrassed 
 him. This new suit ... he had heard a lot about 
 this new suit that very morning. No doubt it was 
 quite the thing, but ought he to wear grey tweed 
 with a stiff white shirt? He had a vague idea that 
 this was not English ; still it was difficult to find any- 
 body to ask. And cuffs, too. He had read somewhere 
 that in England they did not wear detachable cuffs. 
 
 "Oh yes," he said at length, with a great air of 
 carelessness, "not bad. But I think I ought to have 
 my cuffs and shirts all of one piece." 
 
 "All of one piece!" cried Madame Duvernoy. 
 "But, Henri, you would not be able to wear them 
 more than a day ! How can you be so extravagant ! " 
 
8 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 "Well, they do so in England," said Henri obstin- 
 ately, "and it's always foggy there." 
 
 "You can give me some fillet, Marthe," interrupted 
 Monsieur Duvernoy, "when you have done with the 
 toilet of Monsieur le Comte d'Orsay." 
 
 The rapid lunch was hurried on. Marie had served 
 the fillet with a sacerdotal air. It was perfectly brown, 
 vivid pink when cut, surrounded by the sluggish 
 gravy, the mystery of which is butter; little lumps of 
 butter stood upon it here and there, crowned with 
 chopped charvel, like tiny grass-grown rocks. 
 Monsieur Duvernoy bolted his portion, and com- 
 pelled Marie to hurry forth the sweet. 
 
 "But, Monsieur," protested Marie, "not so quickly. 
 You will give yourself an indigestion." 
 
 Monsieur Duvernoy won, however, swallowed 
 without wincing the little cup of boiling coffee, tore 
 his napkin from his collar, went- to his wife, kissed 
 her cheek and ran out of the room. His spare little 
 figure vanished with a flap of flying coat-tails; the 
 door banged behind him. His nervous footsteps 
 could be heard upon the parquet of the hall ; he seemed 
 to push chairs, to drop his walking-stick ; his voice 
 could faintly be heard anathematising Marie and 
 Charlotte because his hat was lost ; Marie responded 
 virulently. 
 
 II 
 
 "Ah, Henri," sighed Madame Duvernoy, "what a 
 man ! what activity ! you would not think he was fifty- 
 two." 
 
 "No," said Henri, "I'm glad I'm not like that. 
 
LA FAMILLE DUVERNOY 9 
 
 I've got some time left, so much the better; give me 
 another cup of coffee." 
 
 Madame Duvernoy looked at him darkly. 
 
 "It's not good for you, Henri," she said, "it's bad 
 for your nerves." 
 
 "Oh, my nerves are all right," laughed Henri. 
 Certainly the suggestion that this big Belgian-looking 
 youth suffered from nerves was rather ridiculous. 
 Madame Duvernoy smiled at the music of her boy's 
 laugh and poured him out a cup of coffee : she had 
 a delicious sense of sin when she spoiled him. 
 
 "Well," she said, "since you're not in a hurry, 
 you can stay and talk with your mother even if she 
 is a lady of a certain age." 
 
 "Oui, maman," said Henri. He glanced affection- 
 ately at the "lady of a certain age." This age was 
 forty-five, but Madame Duvernoy did not look it. 
 She was short, dark-skinned, with good bright-brown 
 eyes; her short nose and pointed chin gave her an 
 air of vivacity. Obviously she had been very pretty, 
 piquante, and now, though the plenitudes of her figure 
 and the thickened lines of her cheeks had robbed her 
 of youthfulness, she remained very erect, flat-backed, 
 square-shouldered ; she suggested powerful stays cop- 
 ing successfully with their task, well-tied laces and 
 clothes where every hook, button and pin did their 
 work well. But for her thin mouth, which was pretty 
 when, it showed her small white teeth, but hardened 
 suddenly when it closed, Madame Duvernoy would 
 have been the well-preserved bourgeoise and no 
 more. 
 
 "You know," she said, "you should not be so 
 English, Henri, when your father is here. He does 
 not like England," 
 
lo THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 "Well, it's not my fault," replied Henri. "Eng- 
 land's the fashion. Everybody dresses in the English 
 style now. And everywhere you see English bars 
 and English furniture, and English girls at the music- 
 halls." 
 
 "Yes, I know," said Madame Duvernoy, "but your 
 father's political views . . ." 
 
 "Ah, oui, Fashoda, I know," laughed Henri. "He 
 is a reactionary, papa. That's very chic." 
 
 Madame Duvernoy looked displeased. She was not 
 the one Frenchwoman in a hundred thousand who 
 knows the difference between a Republicain de Gauche 
 and a Republicain Pro gressiste : she merely knew that 
 the world had but recently emerged from the hideous 
 period of the Dreyfus case, during which every other 
 dinner-party ended in a violent disturbance. 
 
 "I wish you would leave politics alone," she said, 
 with an imperative note in her voice. "They do you 
 a lot of harm. One might think you had forgotten 
 that awful quarrel last year at our dinner-party and 
 the duel in which the vicomte was hit in . . ." 
 
 "Oui, oui, maman, I know," said Henri, fearing 
 the ancient story. " However, you know my ideas : 
 there are lots of Socialistes in the best circles, and if 
 I can't be a Radical . . . after all, I've got a vote." 
 
 "Yes," said Madame Duvernoy, "but why did you 
 tell your father you voted for the Radical? I don't 
 say it matters who you vote for ; these deputes are all 
 canailles." 
 
 Henri said nothing in reply. He vaguely believed 
 that the Radical was an honest man, while everybody 
 knew that the Nationaliste candidate had been com- 
 promised in the Panama affair, and some said he had 
 been a Boulangiste and had sold his leader. Still, 
 
LA FAMILLE DUVERNOY ii 
 
 it was all very difficult ; perhaps his mother was right. 
 He felt annoyed, got up, went to the window and 
 drummed on the window-panes. 
 
 "I should like to be a depute," he said at length. 
 
 "Henri, don't be ridiculous," cried the mother; 
 "why, think of the risks if you weren't re-elected. 
 Twenty-five francs a day won't carry you very far. 
 Though," she added reflectively, "they're talking of 
 increasing their salary." 
 
 She surveyed for a moment the broad back of her 
 sulky child, then, vaguely remorseful, followed him 
 to the window. The house had a spaciousness of view 
 that is rare in Paris. A third of the horizon was taken 
 up by the back of the opposite house, into whose every 
 kitchen the Duvernoys' glances inevitably plunged 
 whenever they looked out of the dining-room window. 
 As Henri's eyes wandered across the yard he saw all 
 that remained of his childhood, the old skewbald mare 
 which drew the coup^ of the Comtesse de Charnac, 
 the window where there used to appear on Sundays 
 the dark uniform of a boarder from the Lyc^e Lakanal, 
 the elderly butler with the bushy whiskers who had 
 known him as a baby boy. The butler had become 
 an old friend, though they had never spoken : for 
 twenty years he had exchanged nods and smiles with 
 him, seen his whiskers grow greyer and bushier. 
 Under the window ran a lane which led to a horse- 
 dealer's yard; upon its rough stones Henri had for 
 years heard the rhythmic clank of iron-shod hoofs as 
 the horses were exercised while he wrote out his tasks. 
 Beyond the lane lay a vast yard, where the munici- 
 pality had piled cartloads of paving stones, thousands 
 of brooms, water carts; in the middle of the yard, 
 between two heaps of gravel, grew a colossal chestnut 
 
12 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 tree. It stood stranded in the midst of municipal 
 activities ; it might have been iifty years old and was 
 untouched : the City of Paris tolerated it among its 
 road metal; indeed the council had provided a little 
 fence to protect its earth. Now, in the soft sunshine 
 of April, a sweeper stood at its foot looking up at it 
 while his deft fingers negligently rolled a cigarette. 
 
 "Look, Henri," said Madame Duvernoy, "his 
 leaves have come." 
 
 "Oui, maman," said Henri. "He is late this year, 
 ten days late." 
 
 The tree reared up its gaunt black trunk ; here and 
 there upon its bare branches flickered tiny green 
 leaves, still curling and moist, full still of the spirit 
 of life. They were just born, and now they were 
 shrinking from contact with the air. The sight stirred 
 Henri; for the twentieth time he was seeing the 
 prodigy, the ever young tree bringing forth a cloud 
 of green jewels, promising the sumptuous crop of its 
 flowers, great regular red cones. He struggled to 
 find a simile, failed, felt that he was not literary. 
 Then his mother broke in — 
 
 "It's a fine view, Henri." 
 
 "Oui, maman," he replied. Madame Duvernoy 
 had said this before; she had said it a hundred times. 
 Still, it was a fine view. Beyond the yard and the 
 chestnut lay the low tiled roof of a builder's work- 
 shop; beyond that the backs of the high houses of 
 the Rue Franpois ler; beyond, the open western sky 
 ^eft m two by the monstrous spear of the Eiffel 
 Tower two miles away. On summer evenings a 
 pageant unrolled in front of this window; the kitchens 
 unashaniedly flaunted washed garments drying in the 
 wmd, while the red flowers of the chestnut tree blazed 
 
LA FAMILLE DUVERNOY 13 
 
 like Christmas candles ;, over all the red light would 
 set, gilding the tiles of the workshop, painting one 
 side of the Eiffel Tower with fire while the other 
 remained black. 
 
 "Henri," said Madame Duvernoy suddenly, "you 
 didn't mean that about being a depute, did you? 
 You know ... of course, it's a very good position, 
 but so uncertain." 
 
 "I don't know, maman," said Henri doubtfully. 
 
 " Well, your father and I would never allow it . . , . 
 you must stick to your work at the etude and in five 
 or six years we'll find you a nice girl to marry, a girl 
 with a little money, and buy you your solicitor's 
 practice." 
 
 "Oui, maman," said Henri faintly. He was over- 
 whelmed, he felt powerless. Forces were seizing him, 
 making a solicitor of him, marrying him to a nice 
 girl with a little money, chaining him up in his prac- 
 tice. Still, he saw no reason to resist; his dreams 
 were vague, too vague to protect him against the 
 French social system. 
 
 Madame Duvernoy looked at him rather anxiously. 
 She was half disappointed not to hear him protest, so 
 ready was she to fight, to grind down his opposition ; 
 she wanted to mould him, curb him, crush him, and 
 then heal his wounds, cover him with caresses. She 
 slipped her hand through his arm. 
 
 "You're quite happy, Henri?" she asked gently. 
 
 "Oui, m,am,an" replied the son in a toneless voice. 
 Then he regained his self-possession. "I must go 
 now," he said, "it's getting late." 
 
 Madame Duvernoy detained him a second, smiling 
 with her mouth but watching him with her hard, dark 
 eyes. 
 
14 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 "Well, kiss me," she said. And as he kissed her 
 she gave a happy sigh of restored security. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The Duvernoys had lived in the flat in the Rue de 
 Marignan for twenty-five years. There Jules Duver- 
 noy, a young barrister of twenty-seven, had brought 
 Marthe, his pretty dark bride of twenty. He had 
 married Marthe Lacour, or rather had been told off to 
 take charge of her after protracted negotiations 
 between his father, old fimile Duvernoy, and Mon- 
 sieur Lacour, who had made his fortune as a wholesale 
 ironmonger in the Faubourg St. Antoine. Monsieur 
 Lacour's shop, for shop it was in spite of its large 
 dealings, was then known to all Paris as "Aux Fers 
 de France." Monsieur Lacour came up to Paris from 
 Provence eight years after Louis Napoleon became 
 Emperor; in those days his possessions were two 
 hundred and twenty francs, a rosary, a scapulary, an 
 old amethyst brooch which had belonged to his grand- 
 mother, a housemaid in the service of Mirabeau, and 
 an inexhaustible store of optimism. The latter enabled 
 him to expand from the selling of pots and pans to 
 dealings in pig-iron; when the war came in 1870 
 Monsieur Lacour nearly doubled his small fortune by 
 a timely importation of English and, said rumour, 
 German rifles for the francs-tireurs and the mobiles. 
 The war profited him so well that 1880 saw him selling 
 pins, needles and tacks, importing boilers and railway 
 plant. He was a made man, but long before Mon- 
 sieur Lacour had soared above his class : his little girl, 
 Marthe, was a pupil of the Oiseaux, his son, educated 
 
LA FAMILLE DUVERNOY 15 
 
 by the Fathers, was a friend of the young Marquis 
 de Salma-Valens, and, forgetting his grandmother, 
 Mirabeau's housemaid, showed his contempt for the 
 ten-year-old Third Republic by entering the crack 
 dragoons. 
 
 It was not without some searchings of heart that 
 old Emile Duvernoy and his wife had received 
 Lacour's advances. True, he was rich, which the 
 Duvernoys were not, but theirs was a long line of 
 lawyers extending, it was said, as far back as the days 
 of Colbert, when a Duvernoy once held a brief for 
 Madame de S6vign^. Another Duvernoy— a royalist 
 judge this — had fled to England with the emigres 
 and founded in Kent the family now known as Dau- 
 burnays. All through their history the Duvernoys 
 had married exclusively either distant connections or 
 the seed of the law. No Duvernoy had ever made a 
 fortune, but no Duvernoy had ever condescended to 
 marry either a "corrupt noble," as the Radical fimile 
 Duvernoy would have said, or de la canaille, as his 
 son Jules Duvernoy contradictorily put it. ^mile 
 Duvernoy had been Monsieur Lacour's solicitor, and 
 the' old tradesman, delighted by the good appear- 
 ance of young Duvernoy, the ancient legal smack 
 of his name, had practically forced Marthe upon 
 him, together with a dot of five hundred thousand 
 francs. 
 
 Jules Duvernoy did not love Marthe, though, let it 
 be said to his honour, he desired her dot no more than 
 he did her. He had no fortune, but he knew that no 
 Duvernoy could fail at the Bar : the name was a good- 
 will. Still, he was twenty-seven, and had had his 
 fling for ten years; Marthe was a tradesman's daugh- 
 ter, shy, gauche, but the Oiseaux had not taken from 
 
1 6 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 her eye an attractive gladness ; she had a figure which 
 would pay for dressing. 
 
 "Eh, mon ami," said his father at length, "il faut 
 faire une fin." 
 
 Jules Duvernoy had made an end, married Martha 
 and her fifteen thousand francs a year, taken from his 
 father another five thousand, and opened a more impos- 
 ing office in the Rue d'Aguesseau. He had lived, or 
 rather life had passed, accompanied only by events 
 which leave no mark because they are expected. Old 
 fimile Duvernoy died a few months after the wedding ; 
 then Henri was born, the co-heir with his uncle, the 
 dashing Capitaine Lacour, of the fortune of the " Fers 
 de France." But Henri was not to inherit millions. 
 The tariff of 1882 dealt a terrible blow at Monsieur 
 Lacour's business; this he tried to counteract by 
 speculating in copper and joining the "corner." The 
 collapse of the " corner " brought the " Fers de France " 
 to the ground; then tragic events accumulated upon 
 one another : the old Lacours were one morning found 
 dead in their bed, suffocated by gas — accidentally; 
 said the papers; a fortnight later Capitaine Lacour, 
 faced by a reduction of his income from three thou- 
 sand francs a month to his captain's pay, shot himself 
 dead through the palate. The younger son was sent 
 to Algeria, almost penniless, to plant alfalfa. 
 
 Marthe Duvernoy had wept when her father, mother 
 and brother successively passed out of life accom- 
 panied by every circumstance of defeat and disgrace, 
 but her griefs seemed every one to vanish whenever 
 she took out of his cot her rosy, fat Henri— later when 
 she took him herself by the hand, in his English sailor- 
 suit, to the "Cours" of Mademoiselle Bimart in the 
 Rue Marbeuf. All through his childhood Henri felt 
 
LA FAMILLE DUVERNOY 17 
 
 the surrounding presence of his mother; it was his 
 mother washing him relentlessly, his mother hearing 
 his Catechism, his mother passing a cool hard hand 
 over his forehead as he lay in bed, and dosing him, 
 if she thought him feverish, with water in which was 
 dissolved a lump of sugar flavoured with a few drops 
 of fleur d' Granger. She loved him with the fierce love 
 of a woman who has had no husband, but has merely 
 lived with a man less strange than others and by him 
 had a child. Jules Duvernoy had disappointed the 
 dreams she nursed when she secretly read a novel at 
 the Oiseaux, under cover of a dictionary and the lid 
 of her desk. He had the dryness, the causticity of 
 his legal line; because his forefathers had been bar- 
 risters, solicitors or judges, he seemed to have been 
 born stiff, logical — his blood did not flow sluggishly, 
 no more did it race; he had married Marthe, given 
 her an adequate flat, left her a fair share of her own 
 income for her clothes, made enough at the bar to 
 maintain her.. His task was done. Their budget was 
 never in jeopardy, for Monsieur Duvernoy earned on 
 an average thirty-five thousand francs a year; this 
 brought up their joint income to fifty thousand francs 
 a year, twenty-five thousand of which kept up their 
 household. Five thousand francs a year were allowed 
 to Mademoiselle Ravier, an aunt of Monsieur Duver- 
 noy, and to two elderly Lacpur cousins whose dot had 
 gone in the copper crash, which made their marriage 
 impossible. Twenty thousand francs a year were 
 saved for the unlikely rainy day or the time when Jules 
 Duvernoy would want to retire from his work. 
 
 Free from cares, therefore, Madame Duvernoy had 
 nothing to think of except Henri. He was her life; 
 he even pervaded her sleep, for the memory of her 
 
1 8 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 duty acted upon her more powerfully than an alarm 
 clock : often Henri, then a boy of fourteen, felt some 
 one shake him by the shoulder at half-past six. He 
 would awake, see his mother in a loose wrapper, her 
 hair roughly coiled up, a book in her hand. 
 
 "Now, Henri," she would whisper, "wake up. 
 Your English recitation— you must say it . . . you 
 have time now." 
 
 Henri would sit up, rub his sleepy eyes, then 
 obediently gather his wits together and recite — 
 
 " To bay orr nott to bay . . . 
 Zat is ze questchoun . . . 
 Wezzer tis noblerr in zer . . . in zer . . ." 
 
 "Inn zer meend . . ." 
 
 "Non, in zer maind . . ." Henri corrected. . . . 
 
 And late at night, too, his mother was by his bed- 
 side, placing his algebra where the morning sun would 
 catch it, whispering into his ears to remember he had 
 to tint a geometrical design. Sometimes, as he slept, 
 she would kneel by his bedside and pray to a God 
 she did not believe in for herself, but who must exist 
 to protect Henri . . . sometimes, too, for trivial 
 faults, she would beat him cruelly, leaving wales upon 
 his back ... for she could have killed him to make 
 him perfect, this boy she loved. 
 
 IV 
 
 Henri Duvernoy had not far to go to reach the 
 etude, for this was an old-fashioned solicitor's office— 
 an office inherited, passed on, solid as a rock. He had 
 only had to walk the short length of the Rue de Marig- 
 nan, cross the Rue Fran9ois ler, and then follow the line 
 
LA FAMILLE DUVERNOY 19 
 
 of the ancient chestnut trees of the Avenue Montaigne 
 to arrive at his place of business. The etude vi?as 
 ruled, according to the secular laws of the profes- 
 sion, by a white-haired avoue; it was 'established 
 in one of the great houses inspired by the spirit of 
 Haussmann. Its height suggested the length of the 
 town planner's immense avenues, for it reared its 
 massive frontage of six storeys aloft, simple in lines 
 but ornate in decoration ; two crushed stone giants bore 
 the first-floor balcony and its heavy wrought-iron 
 balustrade. Above, other balconies continued the 
 rhythm with less decorative emphasis; the windows 
 were all high, the porch broad, its two doors so pon- 
 derous that the concierge had himself to close them at 
 night, for they were too heavy for his wife. The 
 etude was on the first floor, but nothing revealed its 
 existence save a black, octagonal plate, bearing in 
 golden letters the words, "Berquin, Avou^." 
 
 Henri was not in a hurry, for a quarter of an hour 
 remained of the hour and a half during which the 
 office was every day closed to enable the clerks to go 
 home and lunch. He was disturbed, agitated almost; 
 not that his parents' intentions were new to him, but 
 they seemed that day to oppress him, to echo in his 
 brain as if expressed by destiny. He reflectively 
 posted a letter at the post office at the corner of the 
 Champs Elys^es, surveyed carelessly their wide 
 prospect, the Kiosque where the old newspaper woman 
 sat, a bundle of shawls, with her feet on a little char- 
 coal stove, the white ca.i6 opposite where now some 
 coachmen in ochre trousers and hard white hats sat 
 over odorous stews, the gay windows of the English 
 chemist full of packed patent medicines. The Champs 
 Elys6es were almost deserted, for it was close on half- 
 c 3 
 
20 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 past one ; a few empty cabs crawled up the hill towards 
 the distant Arc de Triomphe; a maid with tightly 
 drawn black hair and a rigid white apron ran across 
 from refuge to refuge followed by a prancing, curled, 
 bejewelled poodle. Then he retraced his steps along 
 the street, meditatively examining the bowls of coffee 
 beans at the grocer's, the chemist's blue and red 
 bottles, the little Bar Anglais where the grooms and 
 ostlers gossiped and laid bets with the men from the 
 horse-dealer's in the lane. 
 
 Henri Duvernoy's thoughts did not amount to very 
 much. They were never rapid or revolutionary; 
 indeed they were the thoughts that might be expected 
 from his rather heavy but good-natured face. As he 
 walked, a little ponderously and swaying somewhat 
 on his bulky hips, one had the impression of another 
 Henri Duvernoy aged not twenty-four but forty-four. 
 The shape was clothed in decent black, distinctly fat, 
 especially in the face, where the cheeks were touched 
 with rosacia; the golden moustache had gone a dull 
 mouse-colour, and joined up with a darker-grey- 
 streaked beard. In its dull eyes could be seen acquies- 
 cence. Henri Duvernoy was acquiescence itself. He 
 had done his work at school, where he was always 
 punctual and obeyed his masters, done his home-work 
 well, taken every year a first prize and two second 
 prizes, together with one or two stray accessits; then 
 he had attended his course at La Sorbonne; as time 
 passed he became licencie, then do cteur in the law. 
 A year's military service separated the degrees," a year 
 of dull exercises, aimless marching, cleaning — ah ! 
 cleaning. Cleaning rifles and floors, and yards and 
 leather, and white gaiters and brass buttons. Then, 
 life, his father's intimation that after all he had decided 
 
LA FAMILLE DUVERNOY 21 
 
 that a career at the Bar was too uncertain to be suitable 
 for an apparently tongue-tied youth, and that he was 
 to be an avoue for whom, ultimately, a secure practice 
 would be bought. 
 
 As Henri slowly walked down the street, small for 
 Paris though as broad as the main thoroughfares of 
 London, he heaved a sigh and then threw away his 
 Maryland cigarette. He was vaguely conscious 
 of the extraordinary flatness of his life. Nothing hap- 
 pened, or rather the things that happened were as 
 expected as if he were still following at school the 
 engraved emploi du temps.. He had not the soul of 
 an adventurer, so was inarticulate to himself : he did 
 not know what element was lacking in this life of his, 
 which he knew lacked one. He did not know that 
 there was a poetry at the bottom of his uncomplex 
 soul which romance alone could satisfy.. Henri had 
 unconsciously sought romance in women, but had not 
 found it. He had not the temperament which creates 
 it, the enterprise which discovers it. Like most young 
 Frenchmen of his age he had little to learn of sex 
 and everything to learn of love ; his adventures, when 
 he recalled them at all, were unworthy of the name, 
 so brutish and material were they. For a Frenchman 
 he was backward, as shyness and vague fears had 
 forbidden him to do more than glance from the corners 
 of his eyes at the beauties who languish in open cabs 
 in the minor alleys of the Bois de Boulogne. The 
 regiment introduced him to the coarser realities which 
 purported to be the equivalents of the love promised 
 in novels. Henri was disillusioned in a few months; 
 his mind was amazed to find no answer to the 
 question : What, is this all ? 
 
 He retained enough freshness, though, to believe 
 
22 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 that women still promised felicity. He would have 
 given much to be dashing, to kill among the ranks of 
 the wives of barristers and notaries who came to his 
 mother's Wednesdays; he would have been happy if 
 he had been quite sure that the English tailor's suit 
 fitted, to be able to talk of Mirabeau's last book, Lave- 
 dan's last play, the pictures at the Independants. He 
 did his best, saw to it that his nails were manicured, 
 his sharp-pointed boots polished ; he read Pierre Louys 
 and vaguely realised that it was fine but "thick "; he 
 sometimes dressed in his "smoking" to go out alone 
 in the evening so as to get used to mundane manners. 
 Still, all this training, this aching for something, left 
 him face to face with the recurrence of dull tasks, dull 
 days, a future with a heavy lead-coloured sky in 
 which there was no rift. 
 
 Henri heaved another sigh and turned into the 
 dark porch of the etvde Berquin. 
 
CHAPTER THE SECOND 
 
 PETIT DINER SANS CEREMONIE 
 I 
 
 "But, Jules," said Madame Duvernoy, "I don't 
 see why we should give them a dinner. We don't 
 know them very well, and they haven't asked us yet. 
 Besides, people say that Monsieur Bernay . . ." 
 
 "People say, people say," said her husband acidly, 
 "ma chere amie, really you have no business sense. 
 I know quite well that Bernay is not everything that 
 could be desired, but I ... I have my reasons." 
 
 "What reasons?" 
 
 "Oh, business reasons," said Monsieur Duvernoy 
 reluctantly. Then he decided to give his wife his 
 confidence, as usual, for he had no professional secrets 
 where she was concerned. "The fact is, I know 
 privately that Bernay is in difficulties with the Turk- 
 ish Government about that Damascus railway. 
 There's no knowing what will happen." 
 
 "I don't see . . ." 
 
 "Oh," exploded Monsieur Duvernoy, "you are 
 ridiculous, Marthe; don't you see that there will be 
 a big lawsuit ? It'll last a long time, a year at least. 
 His barrister will make Heaven knows what out of it. 
 Now do you understand ? " A pettish expression 
 came over his face; his small hands clenched 
 nervously. 
 
 23 
 
24 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 Madame Duvernoy drew herself up, 
 "Tules," she said, "you are annoying, you expect 
 everybody to guess what you mean. If you had said 
 vou had business reasons I would ... 
 
 "If I had said!" shouted Monsieur Duvernoy ; 
 "why don't you listen when I talk . . •" 
 
 "Now, Jules, don't agitate yourself. Let me see, 
 the Bernays have a daughter, we must ask her.^ Yes, 
 and M^zin of course. We want a woman too." 
 
 "Mademoiselle de Morenda," suggested Monsieur 
 Duvernoy, twirling his grey moustache. 
 
 "No," said Madame Duvernoy firmly, "I know one 
 can ask la petite Morenda without her mother to 
 lunch, but not to dinner. It is not the thing. No, we 
 must ask Madame Sarlat-Cohen." 
 
 " I hate Jews," sniffed Monsieur Duvernoy. 
 "She is not a Jewess, she married a Catholic — at 
 least, he became a Catholic. Besides, you forget her 
 party wall dispute." 
 
 "Bother her party wall. Those cases are more 
 trouble than they are worth." 
 
 " Jules I how can you refuse cases ! Besides, she 
 is a third cousin of Baron de Galgenstein. You never 
 know what it will lead to." 
 
 "Oh, all right, have Madame Sarlat-Cohen if you 
 must. It's your dinner, not mine. Mind, the entries 
 are to come from Gloppe, not from the baker." 
 
 Monsieur Duvernoy left the room, colliding with 
 his son at the door. Henri found his mother coupling 
 names on a used envelope, scratching them out and 
 putting them in again with a great air of concentra- 
 tion ._ She was clearly solving a business problem. 
 
 "A propos, Henri," she said; "we are having a 
 little dinner next Friday. You will please arrange to 
 
PETIT DINER SANS CERfiMONIE 25 
 
 be in. The Bernays and their daughter will be 
 asked." 
 " Oh ! " said Henri without any show of interest. 
 
 II 
 
 Though the dinner was timed for half-past seven 
 the Duvernoy men did not come home before ten- 
 past. They had every reason to keep away from the 
 flat, for little dinners in their small establishment 
 meant domestic convulsions from which they usually 
 suffered. The convulsions had begun the day before, 
 when Madame Duvernoy had sat in the kitchen 
 between Marie and Eugenie, the cook, "La Cuisine 
 Bourgeoise " open before them. There had even been 
 a heated altercation between the partners, for Madame 
 Duvernoy had tried to suppress the entree. 
 
 "Mais, Eugenie, it's only a little dinner, quite en 
 famille." 
 
 "Madame cannot do without an entree," said 
 Eugenie firmly. "Madame must have little birds." 
 
 "I see," said Madame Duvernoy, "you want your 
 sou in the franc." 
 
 Eug6nie blushed bright red. She was furious, for 
 Madame Djivernoy spoke the truth ; her plan was to 
 have as costly a menu as possible so as to reap that 
 halfpenny in the franc which is the Parisian cook's 
 perquisite. 
 
 "As Madame likes," she said icily. "If Madame 
 is not pleased, I will return my apron to her." 
 
 This storm, however, and many others, subsided. 
 All through Friday the, flat was filled with scents of 
 cooking; little boys in spotless pastrycook dress 
 
26 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 thundered at the back-stairs door ; the petit salon lost 
 its sofa, which was forced into Henri's little room, so 
 as to give the ladies an impression of size when they 
 took off their wraps. A few minutes after seven 
 Madame Duvernoy arranged with her own hands 
 the visiting-cards in the silver tray in the hall, so as 
 to place en evidence those of the Comtesse de Balazan 
 and of Mr. Jacob Mahlstein, Ojficier de la Legion 
 d'Honneur, An atmosphere of excitement pervaded 
 the whole flat; noises in every corner blended to- 
 gether; Madame Duvernoy in her dressing-room 
 screamed for hot water, Marie ran wildly through the 
 corridors, carrying flowers in one hand and a tray 
 cloth in another, while the voice of Eugenie could be 
 heard from the kitchen raised in heated altercation 
 with Charlotte and the hired waiter. 
 
 The Duvernoy men had little to do on their arrival, 
 for the concentration of the household took place not 
 on appearances, but on the dinner itself. Everybody 
 had been asked en famille, so that dress was pro- 
 hibited; thus the men were spared the "smoking" 
 they only put on under great pressure. Still, Madame 
 Duvernoy was en demi-toilette, in a slightly d^collet^ 
 mauve tussore which set off her still youthful neck. 
 The men rapidly changed into frock-coats, but Mon- 
 sieur Duvernoy rather spoiled the effect by retaining 
 his soiled boots. As for Henri his frock-coat caught 
 him under the arms and compelled him to remember 
 it all the time. 
 
 At last the family was assembled in the drawing- 
 room a few minutes before the half-hour. The dining- 
 room of the Duvernoys was so much behind the 
 times as to be rather up to date. Most of its furniture 
 came from Jules Duvernoy's grandfather, and had 
 
PETIT DINER SANS CfiRfiMONlE 27 
 
 been bought at intervals between the days of the 
 Directoire and those of Louis XVIII. There were 
 many stiff hard chairs in black or brown wood, with 
 plain covers and metal ornaments on their arms, legs 
 and backs; an oval marble table standing on four 
 legs bore in plain massive gilt frames the languishing 
 picture of an ancestress; an atrocious chiffonier, 
 covered with brackets and mirrors, carried a curious 
 hotch-potch, wooden Chinese figures, Dresden china, 
 bits of Sevres and Swiss cow bells; one side of the 
 room was almost entirely monopolised by a long 
 sideboard in black polished wood, covered with inlay 
 and wrongly attributed to Buhl, while in the middle 
 of the room stood the long and massive couch with the 
 straight side and curved end with which Ingres and 
 his like have made us familiar. Still, there was no 
 undue severity in the room, for the carpet was a thick 
 red felt masked by TurkisTi rugs, while the walls 
 seemed gay because they were white and profusely 
 decorated with gildings. The Duvernoys had no 
 notions about art, which saved them from grave 
 lapses : the only pictures were a small Daubigny, a 
 bad portrait of old fimile Duvernoy, two water-colours 
 of Venice, which might have been worse, and an oil 
 of which Monsieur Duvernoy boasted as a Corot. It 
 was not a Corot, it was a Trouillebert ; but Monsieur 
 Duvernoy, who had been swindled, did not know it 
 and liked to think that it had cost him four thousand 
 francs. 
 
 When M^zin was announced Madame Duvernoy 
 was in trouble, the fruits rafratchis not having arrived. 
 She was seated on the couch under the heavy brass 
 chandelier. This could hold forty candles, and was 
 always kept filled but seldom lighted; never, so far 
 
28 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 as Henri remembered, had the forty candles been lit. 
 He vaguely remembered having once counted twenty 
 flames, but this must have been long ago, for it 
 seemed to have taxed his counting powers. As a 
 rule the candles remained unused up to the summer, 
 during the heat of which they slowly heeled over 
 and disconsolately hung head downwards. On that 
 night ten candles diffused their gentle light over 
 Madame Duvernoy's dark hair and plump, creamy 
 neck. As M^zin entered, announced by the excited 
 and perspiring Marie, whose apron absolutely 
 crackled, so stiff were its folds, there was a little rush 
 of the three Duvernoys, a fierce mingling of four 
 voices warring for supremacy. 
 
 "Ah, cette chere Madame Duvernoy," said M6zi'n 
 at length, gallantly planting a kiss on the back of 
 his hostess's hand. 
 
 "Monsieur M^zin ! now do be reasonable. My 
 husband will be jealous. It would be terrible." 
 
 "Terrible, terrible," growled Monsieur Duvernoy, 
 with a smile. "M^zin, I shall challenge you." 
 
 M6zin laughed, searched his mind in vain for a 
 repartee, then turned to Henri. 
 
 "Ah, Henri, my boy! Well, how are things at 
 the etude?" 
 
 "Very well, very well," said Henri vaguely. 
 "Good, good, very good. Fine weather, hein, 
 Duvernoy ? " 
 
 M^zin was a heavy man of forty-five ; he was fat, 
 rather bald, and suggested by sheer shortness! 
 breadth and rotundity, a tobacco jar. He wore dark- 
 brown whiskers and a thick moustache, but his chin 
 showed blackish and badly shaven. His trousers were 
 baggy at the knees, his waistcoat much creased and 
 
PETIT DINER SANS CERfiMONIE 29 
 
 extremely tight, while his round, detachable cuffs 
 continually shot out from his short sleeves. 
 
 Monsieur Duvernoy was vainly trying to create 
 animation in M^zin's heavy mind, when Madame 
 Sarlat-Cohen was announced. This lady had begun 
 life as Rachel Meyer, married a Cohen who became 
 sous-prefet at Sarlat, buried her husband in the odour 
 of Catholic sanctity, and returned from his district 
 with the prefix "Sarlat." Madame Sarlat-Cohen was 
 fifty-five, and often looked forty-five. She had been 
 very pretty and still had good brown eyes, but her 
 swarthy flesh had pouched over the cheekbones and 
 fatally allowed the jaws to mark her cheeks. 
 
 "Well, ma chere Marthe, who are your charming 
 guests to-night ? " Madame Sarlat-Cohen toyed with 
 her fan. Her hands were very fat and as broad as 
 they were long; rings of flesh formed over the thick 
 wrists. 
 
 "Oh, nobody, nobody, quite a little dinner, the . . ." 
 Madame Duvernoy stopped the space of a second. 
 She felt her dear friend remembering that she had 
 seen the tussore dress before, saw her glance at the 
 ten candles. Aggressiveness crept into her soul. 
 "The Bernays," she added, "you know, the great 
 financier. He is on the Bourse. Have you met 
 him ? " 
 
 A sly look came over Madame Sarlat-Cohen 's face. 
 The three men were at the other end of the room, 
 before the pseudo Corot. "Marthe," she whispered, 
 " you know Loulou Lamirale, of the Folichon Palace ? 
 Well, I hear that Bernay . . ." 
 
 Confused whispers, giggles, Duvernoy's voice — 
 
 "Oui, my old M^zin, four thousand francs for a 
 Corot. . . ." 
 
30 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 Then the bell, Madame Duvernoy and Madame 
 Sarlat-Cohen separated ; the men hurried back to the 
 centre of the room. For a second the hostess forgot 
 the missing fruits rafraichis. Then black-eyed 
 Charlotte opened the door — 
 "Monsieur, Madame et Mademoiselle Bernay." 
 "Ah, Madame, pardon, we are late . . ." 
 "Not at all, not at all, au contraire . . ." 
 "Bonsoir, Bernay, ah! this is Mademoiselle 
 Suzanne. . ." Quickly Mezin and Madame Sarlat- 
 Cohen were introduced to the newcomers. With 
 some skill Madame Duvernoy divided the party, 
 appropriating Bernay for herself, while her husband 
 showed Madame Bernay the Corot. M^zin and 
 Madame Sarlat-Cohen were holding a little private 
 conversation, most of which fell to the woman, while 
 Henri and Suzanne, both shy and exceedingly 
 anxious to please, allowed their idle glances to rove 
 pitiably. Henri felt all the more embarrassed because 
 Suzanne struck him as very pretty. She was petite, 
 slim of shoulder and arm, but already an agreeable 
 plenitude was promised by her figure. On her rather 
 long neck her small head sat delightfully pert. Her 
 skin was dead white, flushing very red at the lips ; her 
 nose was short, the slightest bit tip-tilted. But it was 
 her eyes that Henri looked at furtively. For they were 
 big and velvety black, but not sleepy as southern 
 eyes often are; indeed, they were bright, rather 
 defiant, and there was charming artifice in the de- 
 mureness that veiled them with black lashes. The 
 faintest down shaded her short upper lip. She looked 
 at Henri with more assurance than he could muster 
 in reply. She rather liked this big fair boy. 
 
PETIT DINER SANS CEREMONIE 31 
 
 III 
 
 "Yes, yes, Madame," said Monsieur Duvernoy 
 absently. 
 
 "But you do not understand; not only does my 
 neighbour erect chicken coops against it, but he is 
 putting a wire fence on the top." 
 
 "Abominable, chere Madame," cried M^zin, "you 
 must pull it down." 
 
 "Hum, hum!" said Monsieur Duvernoy; "be 
 careful, the party wall law is tricky. . . ." 
 
 "Not so tricky as the Stock Exchange law," said 
 Bernay. His was a cold incisive voice. Madame 
 Bernay looked at him wistfully. They were a curious 
 faded couple these Bernays, faded like badly reno- 
 vated furniture. There was a drawn look about 
 Madame Bernay's eyes; the lines on her forehead 
 seemed to balance the two vertical wrinkles right and 
 left of her husband's mouth. They looked tired, as 
 if they had been struggling for a long time. True 
 Bernay was very neat and wore a heavy gold chain, 
 while his wife's dress was new and smart, her hands 
 covered with rings. Still, there was weariness in 
 the woman's face, bitterness in the man's. And 
 bitterness when a man is forty-five is a form of 
 weariness. 
 
 "Ah, you are right!" said Monsieur Duvernoy; 
 "believe me, we in the legal profession, we know 
 what canailles people are ! " 
 
 "Parbleu," said M^zin, "we should be poor men 
 if it wasn't for you financiers." 
 
 A ripple of laughter ran round the table, while 
 M6zin remained open-mouthed in presence of his 
 
32 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 success; he did not in tiie least realise the delicacy 
 of his innuendo. 
 
 Henri and Suzanne sat side by side, almost 
 unobserved, for now Madame Sarlat-Cohen had com- 
 pletely engulfed Monsieur Duvernoy and was bury- 
 ing him under the ruins of her party wall. Bernay 
 sat moodily stripping from the trout its delicate 
 speckled skin, while Madame Duvernoy shared with 
 Madame Bernay the task of finding M^zin amusing. 
 Suzanne ate daintily, almost affectedly. Henri, who 
 had said nothing while the soup was on the table, 
 found himself hypnotised by the play of the white 
 fingers and rosy nails on the silver fork. At last he 
 summoned some courage. 
 
 " I hear you are fond of music, Mademoiselle." 
 
 The dark eyes were raised, then quickly veiled by 
 the long lashes. 
 
 "Oui, Monsieur." 
 
 "I too ; at least I go to the Op^ra sometimes." 
 
 "Yes?" said Suzanne. "We have some friends, 
 the Scholteins; they sometimes take me in their box. 
 Last night I was at Tristan et Yseult. You know 
 the Liebestod, of course." 
 
 "Oh, of course," said Henri. This was untrue, so 
 he prudently tried to change the subject. "You 
 know, though, I can't pretend to be a connaisseur." 
 
 Suzanne said nothing, but remained with her 
 hands crossed in her lap, while Henri shifted uneasily 
 in his chair; that frock-coat was gripping him under 
 the arms. 
 
 Madame Duvernoy looked at Charlotte anxiously, 
 but the maid's face did not move. Those fruits 
 rafraichis were missing. Awful. 
 
 "Delicieux, delicieux," said Biernay suddenly. 
 
PETIT DINER SANS CERfiMONIE 33 
 
 "Madame, you have a wonderful cook." He raised 
 upon his fork a swollen olive. 
 
 "Oh, Monsieur," simpered his hostess, "quite a 
 simple dish." 
 
 "Not at all," said Mezin, "it looks to me beauti- 
 fully complicated." 
 
 The entree was truly a wonderful thing : poussins 
 aux olives. The tiny chicks were stuffed with olives 
 and, to import an element of originality, the olives 
 themselves were stuffed with small wads of sausage- 
 meat. 
 
 "Ah," said Madame Sarlat-Cohen, suddenly for- 
 getting her party wall, "Marthe, you have the art 
 of stuffing." 
 
 "It is an art," added Monsieur Duvernoy; "now 
 think of what one can do with chestnuts . . ." 
 
 "And mushrooms," said Madame Bernay. 
 
 "The only stuffing in the world is dates," said 
 Bernay, "inside a roast kid. I have had it en 
 Algerie. A lovely country." 
 
 "Lovely country," echoed M^zin. "It reminds me 
 of a story I heard. You know the Marquise de 
 Salma-Valens, of course. . . ." 
 
 "Prettiest woman in Paris," said Bernay. 
 
 "Oh, oh, Monsieur," cried Madame Duvernoy and 
 Madame Sarlat-Cohen. 
 
 "Pardon, pardon-," said Bernay. "You are right, 
 I withdraw." 
 
 "Well," M6zin resumed, "she was at Biskra this 
 winter with her husband . . . once in a way . . ." 
 
 "Oh, oh ! " from Monsieur Duvernoy. 
 
 "... and she made great friends with the Sheik 
 of the Beni-Salam, visited his harem, and there she 
 met . . ." 
 
34 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 "The ideal man," suggested Bernay. 
 
 "Well . . . hardly. . . ." 
 
 Everybody laughed except Henri and Suzanne. 
 The girl sat as if she did not hear, her long dark 
 lashes shadowing her cheeks. Henri watched her, 
 hardly listening to the story, which did not moderate 
 as it developed. It did not strike him as a curious 
 story to tell before a young girl. But a jeune fille 
 does not hear when she must not. 
 
 "Well, well, la Marquise est une originale," was 
 Bernay's summing up after the anecdote had attained 
 a triumphant finale. 
 
 A saddle of lamb, very small, perfectly rosy and 
 saturated with butter, which slowly formed round it 
 sluggish rills of rich brown gravy, was carved by 
 Charlotte and served by the waiter. 
 
 " Do you play tennis. Mademoiselle ? " asked 
 Henri. 
 
 " Oui, Monsieur, I often play at the Racing." 
 
 "What?" cried Henri, delighted, "are you a 
 member? I have just joined." 
 
 "I have been a member for a year," said Suzanne, 
 smiling. "But I am not very good." 
 
 "You must play with me," said Henri. "I'll 
 introduce you to Max D^cugis." 
 
 "Oh no," said Suzanne, a look of real fear coming 
 into her eyes, "he's much too fine for me. Of course 
 I suppose you're good?" 
 
 Henri could not, a minute later, have accounted 
 for his modesty, but he did not brag. 
 
 "I? No, very poor. You'd agree if you'd seen 
 me play against Germot in the last handicap; he 
 started at minus thirty and . . . well, I was simply 
 crushed." 
 
PETIT DINER SANS CERfiMONIE 35 
 
 "Oh, but Germot is very good." 
 
 "Yes, especially at the net. Still, I wish I were 
 cleverer. I often wish it about other things than 
 tennis." 
 
 Suzanne looked at him out of the corner of her 
 eyes. He was blushing a little and looked none the 
 worse for it, for his blue eyes seemed the bluer and 
 his little red-gold moustache the more pronounced. 
 She liked his trim hand as he played with a knife- 
 rest. 
 
 "I too," she said as if to herself. "It must be nice 
 to be clever." 
 
 They were silent, and then Suzanne, suddenly 
 realising how rapidly the conversation was becoming 
 confidential, forced herself to address Madame 
 Sarlat-Cohen, while Henri was pounced upon by 
 Madame Bernay, whose nephew, it appeared, had 
 served in the same regiment as Henri, but in another 
 company. 
 
 As the ponding a la creme was served, Madame 
 Duvernoy's brow cleared, for Charlotte had answered 
 an agonised glance with a nod. The fruits rajraichis 
 had arrived. The party was becoming more ani- 
 mated, for Madeira had already mixed with some 
 excellent Bordeaux and heavy Burgundy. Bernay 
 had shed his reticence and was gravely gossiping 
 of politics. 
 
 "Ah, Madame," he said to the hostess, "finance 
 is a political education. When we want anything 
 done there is always a depute to bribe; he wants 
 cash or shares or a billet in a bank for his wife's 
 nephew; and there's a railway engineer or a factory 
 inspector . . . and if you want to pass a bill you've 
 got to have on your share register a number of august 
 D 2 
 
36 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 names ... but the august names don't stand 
 
 against anything in the balance sheet." 
 
 "But it's horrible, Monsieur," said Madame 
 Duvernoy. She was genuinely surprised; in spite 
 of the great copper crash she was still the daughter 
 of Lacour, the honest shopkeeper, the daughter of 
 the "Fers de France," while her lifelong association 
 with Jules Duvernoy, the rigid lawyer, did not incline 
 her to condone bribery. 
 
 "What will you?" said Bernay in discouraged 
 tones, "business is business. Of course it means 
 worry, lawsuits . . ." 
 
 "Yes, certainly, you must have many lawsuits," 
 said Madame Duvernoy quickly. 
 
 She remembered the big deal with the Turkish 
 Government. Oh yes, she must be careful and 
 amiable, she must capture this man. After all, 
 business was business. 
 
 "Yes, yes," said Bernay abruptly, "I congratulate 
 you on your dressmaker, Madame. And those 
 diamonds; harmonise with its colour like pearls with 
 the shell." 
 
 Madame Duvernoy looked at him, puzzled and 
 grateful. The man had snubbed her, but gracefully 
 enough; for a second she flattered herself that his 
 glance rested with interest on her plump but shapely 
 hands. Meanwhile the conversation had grown 
 heated, for Monsieur Duvernoy, M6zin and Madame 
 Sarlat-Cohen were in the throes of a discussion as 
 to the merits of Waldeck-Rousseau's bill for regulat- 
 ing the Religious Orders. This had lately been put 
 into execution by Combes. 
 
 "Your Combes, ok, la, la," sneered Monsieur 
 Duvernoy, "a fine champion. . . ." 
 
PETIT DINER SANS CfiREMONIE 37 
 
 "A real Republican," growled M^zin. 
 
 "A brute, a hunter of nuns," screamed Madame 
 Sarlat-Coheri. 
 
 " It was time they were hunted out. Catholicism ! 
 We've had enough of it." 
 
 Madame Sarlat-Cohen drew herself up stiffly. 
 
 "Monsieur M^zin," she said in solemn tones, "we 
 are old friends, so you will please say nothing against 
 my religion." 
 
 The lady's piety restored friendliness, for the four 
 men all caught one another smiling. 
 
 "All the same," remarked Bernay, "it's not worth 
 while getting angry about politics. They are rotten, 
 rotten to the core. Combes is no worse than any 
 other." 
 
 "Anyhow the King of England thought well of 
 him," said Henri; "he gave him a title of nobility." 
 
 There was a pause during which everybody looked 
 at the blushing young man. 
 
 "Yes," Henri stammered, "Combes is Grand Croix 
 de I'Ordre de la Reine Victoria. He is Sir Combes 
 in England." 
 
 "You have a very learned son," said Madame 
 Bernay to Madame Duvernoy. 
 
 The hostess looked at her gratefully, but her 
 husband's brow darkened. 
 
 "Well? And what does it prove? That Combes 
 is an enemy of his country. Those English . . . ah, 
 that entente cordiale, you believe in that sort of thing, 
 you Radicals. . . ." 
 
 "Yes, we do," interrupted M6zin. "We've had 
 enough war. We want friends." 
 
 "Nice friends you're making," sneered Monsieur 
 Duvernoy; "the friends that turned you out of Egypt, 
 
38 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 the friends that drove Marchand put of Fashoda and 
 gave you Morocco instead. . • •" 
 
 "Fine country, Morocco," said Bernay. The 
 place is one mass of iron, phosphate— gold, too, 
 they say." 
 
 Henri sat glowering at his father. 
 
 "Do you know," he said suddenly, "you're out of 
 date, you're not moving with the times ? " 
 
 "Times of scandal, corruption, socialism, drunken- 
 ness and other forms of immorality," snapped 
 Madame Sarlat-Cohen. 
 
 "Times of justice, times when some of us are 
 growing a conscience, understanding that it's a bad 
 world, that people are unhappy and things ugly, and 
 we're going to make them better if we have to go 
 down into the street and fight behind a barricade." 
 
 "That's well spoken, young man," said Bernay. 
 "Generous sentiments are suitable in youth." 
 
 Henri blushed, completely discomposed by the 
 cynical praise. His father shrugged his shoulders, 
 but a delightful glance from Suzanne reached Henri's 
 eyes. It was curious, questioning; it was almost 
 excited. A thrill ran through Henri's veins which 
 he attributed to his outburst. Never before had he 
 spoken his mind, so did not know it. He felt ex- 
 hilarated and then suddenly depressed, for he was 
 weakly conscious that his enthusiasm was artificial. 
 He wondered even whether he had not drunk too 
 much. He should have looked again at Suzanne, but 
 possibly that solution would have escaped his limited 
 capacity as a psychologist. 
 
 The dinner had been long, every item being a 
 great success, especially the fruits rafratchis. At 
 half-past ten both men and women went together 
 
PETIT DINER SANS C£r£MONIE 39 
 
 into the drawing-room; again they paired off after 
 the men had hung about in the hall less than five 
 minutes. There was no sex hostility, no sex bore- 
 dom, nothing to induce either men or women to 
 draw together and talk of things exclusively theirs; 
 indeed, there seemed to exist an anxiety in these 
 elderly men and women to come and stay together. 
 
 Suzanne was made to sit at the piano and to play 
 a polonaise of Chopin, then a nocturne. Long before 
 the end and the applause Henri had felt stirred by 
 the composer's somewhat sugary sentiment. The 
 slim figure bending over the music, its clean-cut 
 dark profile, the vivacity of the arms and hands, of 
 all the body as it swayed with the rhythm, all this 
 affected him. Then Marie came in carrying a large 
 tray laden with glasses of orangeade, sweet biscuits 
 and a small decanter of port (accompanied by liqueur 
 glasses), which brought the party to an end. Every- 
 body seemed to move at once and to try and shout 
 louder than everybody else. Madame Sarlat-Cohen 
 left first, having, she said, to meet friends at 
 Maxim's. Then the Bernays went. 
 
 "Charmante soiree," said Madame Bernay, "char- 
 mante soiree." Suzanne shook hands with Henri. 
 His gaucherie returned; he dared not refer to the 
 Racing Club de France, where they might meet. 
 
 M^zin alone remained. "Well," he said, "I can't 
 stay, I've got some one to meet at the Amiricain." 
 
 "You will never settle down," said Madame 
 Duvernoy. "At your age, voyons." 
 
 "I assure you it's nothing. A man. Look here, 
 if you want evidence I'll take Henri with me. I'll 
 show him life. Well, Henri, what do you say?" 
 He winked. 
 
40 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 Henri hesitated; then his mother settled on his 
 
 ^ "Very well," she said, " don't keep him out too late." 
 
 Madame Duvernoy took Henri apart. 
 
 "You have your key? Take your silk muffler; it s 
 cold these spring nights. Knock at my door when 
 you come in, cheri, and say good-night." 
 
 "Oui, maman," said Henri obediently. He kissed 
 her and also his father, then hurried after M6zin, who 
 was half-way down the stairs. He had gone down 
 one flight when he heard his mother's voice above. 
 
 "Henri! Don't drink any beer, it will upset you 
 after Bordeaux." 
 
 Madame Duvernoy stood at the top of the stairs 
 until she heard the front door slam behind her son. 
 She reflected that he was in good hands, for experi- 
 enced. Of course, if it were only possible, it would 
 be better for her son to stay at home, but men were 
 not made that way. It was natural for Henri to want 
 to have his fling, and she did not feel sure that she 
 would like him any better if he showed no sign of 
 wanting to have it. Of course there were risks in 
 this nocturnal gadding which she did not care to face, 
 entanglements, all that, but still it was always done ; 
 a man was a man, and he had better get all that 
 sort of thing over before he settled down. She 
 wondered vaguely what Henri would do, what he 
 knew and thought of women; a pang shot through 
 her heart as she reflected that there was, or would be, 
 a woman whose kiss would attract Henri more than 
 would hers. Still, that was the order of things, the 
 immutable development which made of the school- 
 boy, the recent conscript, that ideal steady thing, 
 that reliable prop of society, a jeune homme serieux. 
 
CHAPTER THE THIRD 
 
 PARIS LA NUIT 
 I 
 
 "I'm glad you came, Henri," said M.6z'm as he 
 settled himself with difficulty in his seat. "It's time 
 you saw life at twenty-three." 
 
 "Twenty-four." 
 
 "Is it twenty-four? You don't make me feel any 
 younger," said the heavy man. He heaved a sigh. 
 For some seconds he seemed sunk in melancholy, 
 conscious of his paunch, his whiskers, the shameful 
 stigmata of age. But his nature reasserted itself as 
 his eyes met those of a woman in the stage box. Con- 
 fidentially he leant over towards his companion. 
 
 "You see that woman ? " 
 
 Henri looked. She was a fine creature, thirty prob- 
 ably, whose long bust produced, as she sat, the impres- 
 sion that she must be tall. Her purple gown, covered 
 with paillettes, was cut so low that the narrow shoulder- 
 straps bore the whole of its weight; on her massive 
 white shoulders and broad white neck sat an im- 
 pertinent round head with a pointed chin. The mouth 
 was so small, so pouting, so red, that it dominated 
 every other feature, the straight thick nose, the long 
 black Oriental eyes which shone, full of sleepy fire, 
 under the high arched brows. She bore with indo- 
 lence a mass of black wavy hair, sitting with one 
 
 41 
 
42 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 bare arm over the edge of the box, careless of the 
 young man in blue serge and of his companion, a girl 
 who seemed but a shadow in the darkness behind her. 
 
 "Do you know her?" he asked. 
 
 "Know her? No," said M^zin, "except that I 
 know, like everybody, that it's Loulou Lamirale." 
 
 "Loulou Lamirale," Henri repeated. The name 
 was familiar, not only because Loulou flaunted on 
 thousands of postcards and posters, but in virtue of 
 some indistinct personal associations. 
 
 "Yes," said M^zin quickly, "you know— Madame 
 Bernay." 
 
 Henri blushed ; while M^zin, who was as much at his 
 ease in the music-hall as he was dull in the drawing- 
 room, began to laugh. The laugh grated on Henri, 
 he could not have said why ; somehow the connection 
 injured some fine secret feeling. Still, he echoed 
 the laugh in duty bound. 
 
 "Ah, oui, so they say. . . . He has luck. . . . But 
 what does she do here, at Parisiana? I thought she 
 was at the Ambassadeurs," M6zin whispered in his 
 ear, with greed in his eyes. Now and then he broke 
 into a chuckle, which Henri faintly echoed. M^zin 
 unwound his tale, while Henri's eyes roved round the 
 hall. It was small, undistinctive as a theatre in its 
 red and gold, its ceiling heavily frescoed with pon- 
 derous nudities, its curtains loaded with advertise- 
 ments, its growing and waning blaze of footlights. 
 They sat in the stalls, tightly wedged in the motley 
 Paris crowd ; groups of young men in serge or smooth 
 grey stuffs, smoking cigarettes, elaborately uninter- 
 ested in the show, and mostly looking at the women 
 in the balcony; couples, some curiously assorted; 
 boys with downy upper lips and well-dressed, portly 
 women, a few smart elderly men in evening dress. 
 
PARIS LA NUIT 43 
 
 with long thin hair and grey beards, whose button- 
 holes were flowered, by the side of diminutive shop- 
 girls with light hair and fat little hands; and other 
 couples more singular even in their unexpected- 
 ness, heavy men of forty or fifty in short coats and 
 bowler hats, sitting with their obvious wives, who had 
 no pretensions to style — wives whose large busts 
 threatened to burst the seams of their tight white 
 blouses. Further, two officers of the line in worn 
 uniforms, and, in a corner, a youth of sixteen, thin 
 and yellow-faced, in the black uniform of his school, 
 whose sheepish eyes became suddenly and cynically 
 bold as he dared to cross glances with a furtive woman 
 in the promenoir. 
 
 Henri had a feeling of aloofness, boredom. The 
 scene was not new; besides, it had never stimulated 
 him. Still, he had to show interest, to recreate by 
 self-suggestion a taste for "life." 
 
 "Ah," cried M^zin, "the next is Charlotte Opom. 
 You know her, of course." 
 
 " Naturellement," Henri lied with conviction. He 
 threw himself back in his seat with a great air of 
 man-of-the-worldliness. He had heard of Charlotte 
 Opom, the new star; he had not seen her, but it did 
 not do for a French youth to appear ignorant of any- 
 thing, surprised, pleased or indignant; to appear, 
 above all, insensible to the arts. 
 
 The footlights blazed for Charlotte Opom, dan- 
 seuse et chanteuse excentrique. She was a slim girl, 
 sixteen perhaps, with thin, peaked shoulders, promi- 
 nent collar-bones and arms, narrow as matches, that 
 gleamed white by contrast with the irrepressible red- 
 ness of her hands. Her cheeks were stained vivid 
 red, her hair concealed by a great yellow wig, the 
 curls of which descended on her shoulders. She was 
 
44 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 dressed in a long black pinafore dress tied in at the 
 tiny waist by an enormous red sash, while scarlet 
 socks, above which gleamed a strip of pink tight, 
 imparted to the little figure an absurd childish air. 
 
 Charlotte Opom danced in silence, with the curious 
 staccato gestures of a marionette, stopping suddenly 
 at the intervals of the syncopated tune with one leg 
 raised to a horizontal position, while the short, black 
 skirt revealed a broader strip of pink tight. Quicker 
 the music, quicker the little figure up and down, round 
 and round, a whirling top on the axis of a slim leg, 
 a top with a yellow head and a broad red central band. 
 The footlights blazed up, while, as the hall suddenly 
 darkened, a red light played on the dancer, bathing 
 her all, converting her into an arabesque. 
 
 "Pas mal, pas mal," said M^zin heavily. 
 
 Henri did not answer. His attention had been 
 distracted by the sound of a kiss. He looked quickly 
 towards Loulou Lamirale, but she had not moved ; she 
 was a shadow in the box; her long white arm hung 
 lonely as if detached from her spectral body. Just 
 then the lights went up, there was a squall of clapping, 
 some bravos ; Charlotte Opom bowed ; she smiled with 
 her long thin red mouth. Then quickly she began 
 to sing as a Union Jack fell on her shoulders from the 
 roof. No longer was she the irresponsible dancing 
 child; she was la petite anglaise, a queer caricature of 
 thinness and vice; she was the Englishwoman France 
 believes in : fair, scraggy, drunken and full of singular 
 vices hidden under a cloak of puritanism. In her 
 high slum voice Charlotte Opom sang— 
 
 " C'est moi la p'tite anglaise 
 Du BoulVard Rochechouart. 
 C est moi ciuiaime et baise 
 Du matin jusqu'au soir. . . ." 
 
PARIS LA NUIT 45 
 
 The blue eyes rolled right and left, the thin upper lip 
 curled, full of suggestion, showing the eye-teeth. In 
 halting verse Charlotte Opom told of her Lord 
 anglais, la Tamise and the policeman; then, in a 
 shriek, her chorus — 
 
 " Oh ! Yes ! plum-puddinn. 
 English spokinn ! " 
 
 She remained rigid, swathed in the folds of the Union 
 Jack, like a cheap doll . . . then she told her joys — 
 
 " Mes amants j'en ai seize ; 
 Je fais leur ddsespoir, 
 Parce que je m'mets k I'aise 
 Avec mon beau lifguar ! 
 
 Oh ! Yes ! plum-puddinn. 
 
 English spokinn ! " 
 
 There were shouts, a recall, a denied encore. Another 
 turn pressed on, a sinister idiot comedian who prated 
 of his conquests while he frequently removed and 
 polished his glass eye. Then the interval, un- 
 enlivened by music. There was a greater buzz of 
 talk, many cigarettes were lighted ; some of the youths 
 fixed their eyes more boldly on the women in the 
 promenoir, while the youngest assumed elaborate 
 indifference and read the pink Journal des Sports. 
 Loulou Lamirale turned upon the audience her 
 shapely white shoulders. Henri sat back in his seat. 
 He was unutterably bored, tired. He could not have 
 defined the cause, for his boredom was subconscious ; 
 he would have been shocked if he had been told that 
 he thought all this inane and vulgar. M^zin's voice 
 broke in; he hardly heard him, for his wearied eyes 
 were employed in reading on the curtain the advertise- 
 ments of the Chocolat Menier, Dufayel's shop, la 
 menthe Ricqles. The word " Bernay " suddenly drew 
 him from his torpor. 
 
46 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 "Yes," M^zin was saying; "oh, he is right, Bernay. 
 His wife— well, you've seen her._^ I wonder whether 
 she was pretty twenty years ago." 
 
 "I expect so," said Henri suddenly; "her daughter, 
 anyhow. . . ." He stopped abruptly. M^zin began 
 to laugh as he blushed. 
 
 "Ah, ah I you haven't got your eyes in your pocket. 
 But . . . no larks. They haven't got a sou." 
 
 "What I" cried Henri. "But Bernay makes 
 
 millions." 
 "Mere thousands," said M6zin; "besides ... ask 
 
 Loulou Lamirale." 
 
 Henri looked at the enchantress with an animosity 
 he could not explain. That woman . . . while Suzanne 
 Bernay. . . . Oh, preposterous ! " 
 
 "Mon pauvre enfant," added M6zin, "Bernay's 
 castles are not even built with cards. They're built 
 with his companies' scrip, which isn't anything like 
 as strong. That girl won't have fifty thousand francs 
 dot, believe me." 
 
 Henri was disturbed. Fifty thousand francs only I 
 
 " She'll never marry with that," he said. 
 
 "Hardly . . . unless somebody falls in love with 
 her pretty face." 
 
 " Oui, oui," said Henri formlessly. Her pretty face. 
 Her pretty face. He found himself repeating the 
 words. M^zin went on talking ; he had forgotten the 
 Bernays by now ; he was speaking of his own affairs, 
 about an open-minded friend he had in the Rue des 
 Martyrs; but Henri hardly listened, for in his brain 
 two sentences revolved chaotic : Her pretty face . . . 
 only fifty thousand francs. 
 
 They sat out another turn, the eternal mongrel fan- 
 dango whose popularity never wanes; then a hideous 
 
PARIS LA NUIT 47 
 
 duet between a squat dark girl, whose shawl and 
 black hair falling low over her ears suggested those 
 who wander by night near the walls of the city. Her 
 companion, tall, clean shaven, his hair plastered on 
 his forehead into an accroche-cceur, wore the famous 
 high cap with a peak of the stage apache. At last, 
 the girl's voice ended the duet. ... In spite of her 
 ugly intention, it remained merely commonplace. 
 
 Every tone of her drawling voice was full of the 
 greasy slurring of the Paris gutter. It was rich in its 
 suggestion of base temptation, dim gas lamps, desert 
 suburban streets, the ready, waiting knife of the pro- 
 tector. The intolerable caress of the black eyes zoned 
 with kohl, the atmosphere of venality stirred in Henri 
 a passion of disgust. The woman was trampling on 
 him, on his soul, perhaps. He seized M^zin by the 
 arm. 
 
 "Let's go," he said; "c'est idiot." 
 
 "You're right," said M^zin amiably; "we'll go to 
 the Casino. That's the place ! La vie, Henri ; la 
 vraie vie." 
 
 Henri would have resisted, told M^zin truthfully 
 that he would rather go home, but he was influenced 
 by the powerful animal zest of his senior, shamed 
 by the thought that he was not liking life. 
 
 II 
 
 The high vault of the Casino de Paris reflected the 
 effulgent lights upon the crowded groups round the 
 little tables in the centre of the floor, dark little groups 
 of men dotted here and there, with the white shoulders 
 
48 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 and light dresses of their companions, discreet couples 
 sitting with head touching head, and blase couples 
 languidly puffing at cigarettes, with eyes fixed on 
 the mauve haze. Above, in the balcony and boxes, 
 fashionables watching the scene with Olympian de- 
 tachment : women in demi-toilette, whose social status 
 forbade them to condescend to full dress; languid 
 Americans, hatchet-faced and coarse-skinned, whose 
 languor often slipped from them, leaving them 
 hysterically merry and taut-nerved ; large dark 
 Jewesses with massive brown arms and shoulders, 
 bovine and so heavily loaded with diamonds as to 
 appear stiffened by them into statues of Asiatic deities. 
 Among them their men, slim youths whose faces were 
 white, shoulders and chests narrow, youths with plas- 
 tered hair, wilder youths with untidy, wig-like heads ; 
 elderly beaus, whose thin wrinkled faces bent low 
 and seductive as they spoke very near the women's 
 ears; and old men, fat, overflowing from their tight, 
 sometimes stained and unbrushed, clothes. On all of 
 them a great air of establishment, of distant participa- 
 tion in the scene below. 
 
 M^zin and Henri sat in the central space at a small 
 table in the middle of the hall. From the crowd 
 around them rose a vast hum of talk, little cries, shrill 
 peals of laughter, clinkings of spoons and glasses. A 
 bourgeois and his heavy wife sat next to them, silently 
 absorbed in the empty stage; the man puffed slowly 
 at a cigar, while his wife sucked through a straw some 
 sirop de groseille. On the other side a group of dark 
 young men, in clothes so tight that on the back of one 
 the braces seemed to start out through the cloth ; they 
 clustered close, talking intimately, breaking away only 
 to indicate a woman by a nod or to light a cigarette. 
 
PARIS LA NUIT 49 
 
 Henri's eyes roved further to a couple which interested 
 him. 
 
 " Degoutant," he said to M^zin, indicating them. 
 
 "Oh," protested M^zin, "it's not more disgusting 
 than anything else. It's true, though ; the old gentle- 
 man is a bit ripe." 
 
 Henri looked at the couple again, the old man with 
 white hair, a face heavily touched by rosacia, pen- 
 dulous cheeks, dull eyes, and a mouth that perpetually 
 chewed some non-existent food. With him was a 
 girl of sixteen or so; she was small, pitifully small 
 and thin, marked already by time or hunger. Her 
 wide, black eyes looked out fearfully, half avoiding 
 those of the old man and horribly half-appealing to 
 him. 
 
 "I think it's awful," said Henri hotly. "Why, he 
 might be her grandfather ... I'd put an old man like 
 him in gaol. . . ." 
 
 "Well, you'll be old one day," said M^zin bluntly. 
 
 Henri stopped short. He too, he would be like 
 that; perhaps he too would be old without forgetting 
 youth. The feeling rushed in upon him that he too 
 would then still see the beauty of women. His eyes 
 roved, noticing with appreciation the graceful curve 
 of a tall fair girl's neck, the small brown hand of 
 another as she held up to her eyes a glass full of 
 green curagao. 
 
 "No," he declared, with an effort, as he regained 
 self-control, "when I'm as old as that I'll be married 
 and have a family ; all that's . . ." He had nearly said 
 "absurd," but dared not, and ended lamely, "Of 
 course, later on — I'm not going to plant my cabbages 
 yet." 
 
 M^zin began to laugh, and spoke at random. 
 
50 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 " Oh, la, la, Monsieur is a bourgeois. Monsieur has 
 domestic virtues. So it's arranged with Suzanne ? " 
 
 "Monsieur M^zin !" Henri had blushed angrily. 
 He felt impelled to throw his cup of coffee at the elder 
 man's head. 
 
 "All the same, fifty thousand francs— it's not fat," 
 M^zin added negligently. 
 
 Henri's face suddenly fell. His brain was in a 
 state of turmoil. For the first five minutes he took 
 no heed of the Greek play which had now begun on 
 the raised stage. Yet the play — Les Courtisanes de 
 Pelos — had its moments of grace. The background 
 was made up of the tall pink columns of a marble 
 temple, hung with festoons of laurel leaves. On the 
 right, beyond a terrace, lay a broad blue swelling 
 sea. A crowd of women, slightly clad in light 
 draperies, formed a clamorous group at one corner, 
 with raised bare arms, while before them a handsome 
 youth with curly dark hair inspected them as if 
 uninterested. On the terrace another youth sat 
 cross-legged, playing on the pipes a monotonous 
 melancholy air. 
 
 M^zin nudged Henri. 
 
 " I say, that big girl in red, belle fille, hein?" 
 
 Henri nodded approval. Though his brain still 
 seethed, he could not help being fascinated by the 
 forms of the women as their modern ungainliness plas- 
 tered the thin stuffs on their bodies. There was stimu- 
 lation, too, in the studied clamour from which voice 
 after voice emerged, promising the young Greek un- 
 knowable joys, bargaining, praying, casting at him 
 the effluvia of temptation. The women crowded round 
 the youth, pulling him this way and that, thrusting 
 their faces into his, hoisting him at last triumphant 
 
PARIS LA NUIT 51 
 
 on their shoulders. And then the crack of whips, 
 wild cries, the inrush of the tetrarch's guards, a wild 
 melde of brass helmets and Macedonian bucklers, an 
 anachronic orgy of armour, a capturing of screaming 
 women. 
 
 A little shiver of delight had passed over the hall 
 as the whips began to crack. The bourgeois still sat 
 smoking in silence while his wife sucked the sirop de 
 groseille, but the four young men had their eyes fixed 
 on the stage, while a film had covered those of the 
 old man who now held in his hand that of the wild- 
 eyed child. The play unrolled, rapid and suggestive, 
 full of shameless offers and requests, redolent with 
 floggings and crucifyings, with horrid torturing of 
 slaves; crescendo, as the courtesans began with the 
 guards the final orgy of wine poured out of goat- 
 skins, the columns of the temple fell crashing to reveal 
 upon her globe Aphrodite, a nude living figure, a 
 collar of pearls round her neck, a looking-glass in her 
 hand to mirror her lovely cruel face. 
 
 The curtain fell slowly as applause crepitated from 
 every corner. M^zin meditatively dabbed his moist 
 forehead with his handkerchief and turned to Henri. 
 
 "I say," he remarked, with the solemnity of a babe, 
 "it's a fine thing, Greek art." Henri did not answer, 
 for his schooldays were not so distant that he could 
 not remember Greek art as somewhat different, but 
 he did not know enough to make a comment. But 
 M^zin saved him perplexity. He suddenly awoke to 
 activity as he saw two minor actresses he knew in the 
 promenoir. He made for the semi-circular space be- 
 yond the balustrade, where flows a continuous un- 
 easy stream of women ; Henri could see him struggle, 
 wave his arms, then speak to them. In another 
 E 2 
 
52 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 minute he returned, the women following him. They 
 sat down on either side of Henri. 
 
 "Allow me to introduce my friend," said Mezin. 
 The two women bowed easy assent. 
 
 "Mademoiselle Irma de Valmo, Monsieur Henri 
 Duvernoy; Mademoiselle Dorinne de Fauchamps, 
 Monsieur Henri Duvernoy." 
 
 Henri bowed. He would not have felt embarrassed 
 if his mood had not been one of weariness and if his 
 brain had not been stirred by a single idea. He 
 examined Irma attentively as she talked to M^zin. 
 The girl was short, broad, agreeably plump of 
 shoulder and neck ; her brown eyes had the vivacity 
 of Gascony, her ample bust some animation. She 
 seemed unable to remain still ; continually she 
 wriggled in her seat, tapped the table with her plump 
 beringed hands, tossed her crop of scented black hair 
 in M^zin's face as he leant over to whisper in her 
 ear, his lips very close to it, his shoulder touching 
 hers. At last a voice broke into his meditation. 
 
 "You are very absent. Monsieur," it said slowly, 
 with a drawl. 
 
 Henri started; it waS Dorinne, the tall, thin, lily- 
 like Dorinne. 
 
 "Yes . . . that is ... I am tired," he mumbled. 
 
 The actress said nothing but, with the most extreme 
 deliberation, smiled. The smile began by a slow 
 upward curving of her long thin lips ; no dimple 
 formed in the flat and hardly flushing cheeks; then 
 the white teeth showed, the blue eyes were half con- 
 cealed by the eyelids, a tremor shook the face and a 
 little the golden curls. As gradually as it had come 
 it waned, and Henri once more had before him a 
 long slim girl with narrow shoulders, dressed in light 
 
PARIS LA NUIT 53 
 
 blue cr^pe de chine which neither rose nor fell as she 
 breathed, whose hands were very slender, and on 
 whose face sat enigmatic an abstraction as great as 
 his. The smile made Henri uncomfortable ; it was so 
 calculated, so much the smile of an actress. 
 
 "It is very hot," he remarked vaguely. Then" 
 with more decision, "May I offer you something, 
 Mademoiselle ? " 
 
 "No, thanks. Monsieur," said Dorinne. She leant 
 back in her chair, and Henri was struck by the fine 
 long line that joined her ear with the tip of her thin 
 shoulder. From the corners of her eyes she watched 
 him lazily. 
 
 "You do not look at the show, Monsieur," she said 
 at length. 
 
 "I'd rather look at you." Henri plunged with a 
 horrible sense of helplessness. Still there was truth 
 in his words, for certainly the Chinese juggler who 
 was eating live rockets could not rival the languid 
 Dorinne. Again Dorinne smiled and, as if by in- 
 advertence, raised her long hand ringed with tur- 
 quoises and green scarabs and negligently let it fall 
 near Henri's. And, as inadvertently, Henri's hand 
 closed on hers. Suddenly there was a peal of laughter 
 from Mademoiselle de Valmo. 
 
 "Ah, ah, les amoureux," she cried, pointing at the 
 interlocked hands. 
 
 "Touching," said M^zin. 
 
 "Charming infants . . . ah, what a lighthouse . . ." 
 
 Henri was blushing bright red, hence the "light- 
 house" joke. Mademoiselle de Fauchamps was too 
 aloof to take the slightest notice of the raillery which 
 rained on them for another minute. At last Henri 
 withdrew his hand and M^zin took pity on him. 
 
54 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 " Voyons," he said at length, "it is late. Shall we 
 go on to the Cabaret Secret ? " 
 
 "Oui, oui," Irma almost screamed, clapping her 
 hands. 
 
 "Oh, I say . . ." said Henri, with a doubtful 
 intonation. 
 
 "Oui, oui," Irma began again, "it's quite close, 
 Monsieur, just in the Rue Pigalle." 
 
 And then, suddenly exhibiting unexpected latent 
 force, Dorinne rose to her feet and wrapped round 
 her head and shoulders a black silk scarf which 
 embowered her pale face. 
 
 "I am ready," she remarked. 
 
 Meekly they followed her. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The Cabaret Secret is probably unknown to most 
 Parisians. It has the distinction of the most select 
 places, for it does not court the public, it does not 
 advertise, nor does it pay journalists to record that 
 So-and-So was there. It discreetly occupies the rez- 
 de-chaussee of a bourgeois house in the Rue Pigalle, 
 from which it is separated by thick white lace curtains 
 that shut in its rosy lights. Inside it has nothing 
 luxurious, no gilt plate, no crystal ware, no thick- 
 piled carpet: it is a cabaret, pure and simple. On 
 its red-tiled floor stand rough deal tables without 
 tablecloths, surrounded by hard and uncomfortable 
 chairs ; a peasant's bahut contains the napkins which 
 are parsimoniously doled out, while on a dumb waiter 
 stand in earthenware dishes little confections of cold 
 meat and fish. If coffee is called for it is brought to 
 
PARIS LA NUIT 55 
 
 each guest in its own little metal machine, which 
 stands on a glass into which the coffee slowly trickles. 
 Over all a number of oil lamps shed a faint glow ; the 
 Cabaret Secret flouts electricity as vulgar; in one 
 thing only has it surrendered : the lamps have pink 
 shades. But the appearance of roughness, the coarse 
 ware, the clumsy attendance of the peasant-like 
 servants, are all on the surface, for the meats are 
 exquisite. The Ritz, Larue, Durand, Armenonville, 
 cannot equal the Cabaret's salade Russe, its oeufs d la 
 Bechamel, its aspics, nor its private bins of Mumm, 
 Heidsieck and Pommard. And its high prices, too, 
 justify its existence. 
 
 M^zin, Henri and their companions found them- 
 selves at a small table among a more brilliant assembly 
 than at the Casino. Altogether there were some 
 twenty suppers besides themselves : a well-brushed 
 obvious Englishman in evening dress drinking 
 whisky-and-soda with a petite dark French girl all 
 gold spangles and red mousseline de sole ; two French 
 dandies, elderly arid a little faded, with wrinkles round 
 their tired eyes, in company with two bold-looking 
 redl-haired girls — sisters, no doubt, whose plump white 
 shoulders emerged alike and shimmering from black 
 velvet low-cut frocks; further, two young men, both 
 dressed in morning coats, with pale fancy vests, faintly 
 coloured and rather flowing ties, rings on their small 
 well-tended hands; and other couples, mostly ill- 
 assorted with regard to age, where the men were 
 quieter and more dandified than fashion-plates, the 
 women assertive, inclined to plume themselves because 
 they were among the elect. 
 
 "Le Due de Warmery," Irma whispered to 
 Dorinne, as she indicated one of the elderly dandies. 
 
56 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 There was a putting together of heads and stifled 
 gigglings, while M^zin nudged Henri. 
 
 "My treat," he said quickly. 
 
 Henri would have liked to protest, but did not know 
 what to say. Never before had he seen M^zin so 
 liberal. Indeed, he was famous for riding outside 
 omnibuses in the rain so as to save three sous. But 
 then M^zin had money for pleasures, and it pleased 
 him to be seen socially with actresses, even though 
 they were not of the first rank. It was hardly a 
 merry party in spite of Irma's rushing pleasantries, 
 Dorinne's childish surprise at finding truffles inside 
 a sweetbread. M^zin laughed good-naturedly, 
 stroked Irma's plump arm, while Dorinne more lan- 
 guidly than ever leant over towards Henri so that 
 he could breathe her scented hair. Round them the 
 couples were assuming affectionate attitudes with 
 delightful desinvolture. The Due de Warmery and 
 his companion, whom they now knew to be Nicozi, 
 the aluminium king, were crowded shoulder to 
 shoulder with the red-haired girls ; the blue smoke of 
 cigarettes slowly rose from the centre of the group of 
 heads. The two young men lit cigarettes from one 
 another's, their faces close together as the burning 
 ends touched, and their eyes lucent as they exchanged 
 fragrant Turkish from gold cases set with coral. The 
 Englishman at frequent intervals ordered another 
 whisky-and-soda and drank it down in three gulps, 
 while his companion yawned, meanwhile watching 
 him. 
 
 Henri felt strange in this gilded company, where 
 ennui seemed to reign, except in the group where the 
 high voice of the elderly Due could be heard drawling 
 a story suited to the Cabaret. 
 
PARIS LA NUIT 57 
 
 "C'est chic, le Cabaret," said Dorinne at last. 
 
 "I've never been here before," Henri confessed. 
 
 "I'm showing him life," said M6zin, laughing. 
 
 "Papa," screamed Irma. She was convulsed at her 
 own joke. 
 
 "Education de Prince," Dorinne added. 
 
 "Oh, it may be the first time, but it won't be the 
 last. Hein, Dorinne?" 
 
 M^zin nudged Dorinne, then looked at Henri. 
 The young man was so disturbed by the implication 
 that he almost rose to his feet. 
 
 "No, no, you're not going," cried Irma, her brown 
 eyes flashing. 
 
 " Voyons, Henri," M^zin expostulated, "why surely 
 . . . aren't you having a good time? Why, we'll 
 never forgive you." 
 
 The torrent of words strengthened Henri's resolve. 
 He rose to his feet. He could not have said why. 
 Dorinne's blue eyes were full of amusement and she 
 certainly attracted him, but so many thoughts warred 
 in his brain that he could not disentangle them. He 
 felt horribly cowardly, silly, unworldly. He was 
 unpleasantly conscious of the contemptuous and 
 amused glance of the Due de Warmery, of the sullen 
 stare of the Englishman whose heaA^ hand clutched 
 his refilled glass. But at all costs, he must escape, 
 try and find outside relief from the chaos of his mind, 
 breathe any but this vaguely alluring and horribly 
 confusing atmosphere. He could not have said what 
 he wanted to think about, but solitude he did want. 
 
 "I'm sorry . . ." he faltered. 
 
 "Oh, no importance," said M^zin in a cold voice. 
 
58 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 IV 
 
 As Henri softly stole past his mother's room he 
 heard her call him. 
 
 " Henri ? " She came out of her room in a dressing- 
 gown, holding up a candle. "Have you amused 
 yourself, mon enfant ? " 
 
 "Oui, maman." 
 
 "Ah, that is well. Here, drink this, it will make 
 you sleep." She gave him a fond admiring look and 
 shut the door. Henri stood there for a second, then 
 swallowed the water flavoured with sugar and jleur 
 d'oranger. 
 
CHAPTER THE FOURTH 
 
 LE SPOR' 
 I 
 
 The Duvernoys came out of the Metropolitain. 
 Before them stood the Arc de Triomphe, dazzlingly 
 white and enormously large in its isolation ; it stood 
 very Roman against the brilliant blue sky, its vast 
 bulk circled by many cabs, carriages and motor-cars, 
 all of which were making towards the west. The 
 happy bustle of Sunday seemed to infect the passers- 
 by ; the sergent de ville, who twirled his black mous- 
 tache and wondered whether the young warmth of 
 April did not already justify an exchange into his 
 summer white ducks; the newspaper seller in the 
 Kiosque, who still prudently swathed herself in 
 shawls but rested her feet on an empty stove; the 
 servants in their blue aprons, who passed by gaily 
 swinging their market baskets. The air was light; 
 the trees, already rich, were early green. Little knots 
 of scorchers swept by, their heads well down to the 
 handle-bars ; motor-cars manned by furred Olympians 
 haughtily breasted the rise of the Champs Elys^es; 
 the New York Herald's English four-in-hand went 
 by at a gallop, loaded with Americans bound for 
 Longchamp, the postillion gaily tooting his horn. 
 
 "Fine day, hein," remarked Monsieur Duvernoy. 
 He carefully removed his top-hat and wiped his brow. 
 
 59 
 
6o THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 The little man looked almost smart, for his frock-coat 
 was new and well brushed, his long pointed boots 
 were very bright ; his grey overcoat sat lightly upon 
 his shoulders as if proud of its red ribbon, for Mon- 
 sieur Duvernoy had recently been made a Chevalier 
 de la Legion d'Honneur. 
 
 "Yes," said Madame Duvernoy, "we shall meet 
 everybody in the Bois. It's a pity, though, they've 
 got this Metropolitain ; now everybody can get there 
 it's becoming quite common." 
 
 "Mais, maman" said Henri, with a laugh, "we 
 came in the Metro', didn't we ? We mustn't grumble 
 at what science gives us." 
 
 "Science," Monsieur Duvernoy burst out, "you 
 are ridiculous, Henri. This science of yours, it's at 
 the bottom of the rottenness of the age ; your motor- 
 cars and your telegraphs and your hygiene . . . why 
 Socialism would never have been heard of without 
 them . . . the people get too much science, not too 
 little, and that means a hysterical nation, a nation 
 of sentimentalists who won't be a nation at all if the 
 birth-rate continues to go down and Socialism . . ." 
 
 "Jules," said Madame Duvernoy gently but finally, 
 "don't agitate yourself like that, and don't wave your 
 stick. Besides, you've forgotten to change your red 
 ribbon, it's faded." 
 
 "It's not faded," said Monsieur Duvernoy, 
 still angry but deflected; "I've only worn it three 
 weeks." 
 
 "It is faded." 
 
 "It isn't. Henri, is it faded? " 
 
 "Oui, papa," said Henri revengefully, "one might 
 think it was an old Merite Agricole." 
 
 Monsieur Duvernoy shrugged his shoulders and 
 
LE SPOR' 6 1 
 
 strode on furiously, his wife and son following a few 
 steps behind him. Madame Duvernoy was looking 
 young and rather smart in the brown velvet coat of 
 the day, a large hat in stuff to match, trimmed with 
 erect brown feathers which set off and elongated her 
 round face. She looked up approvingly at her big 
 son ; never, she thought, had she seen him so hand- 
 some, so large-eyed, so erect. His blue suit and 
 striped grey overcoat emphasised his fresh colour. 
 They commented on Monsieur Duvernoy's tantrum 
 as they followed him, avoiding the white tramway 
 that follows the Avenue Marceau, the rumbling La 
 Villette-Trocad^ro in the Avenue K16ber. They 
 caught him up as he passed between the two little 
 wooden shanties where old women sell gingerbread, 
 sweets, hoops, spades, balls, and serve out halfpenny- 
 worths of coco, that strange brew of liquorice roots. 
 
 "Well," said Monsieur Duvernoy, with a sardonic 
 air, "you're very slow this morning. I was thinking 
 of sitting down aux panes and waiting for you." He 
 indicated with a gesture the rows of little iron chairs 
 where the panes, i.e. the "stonybrokes," are sup- 
 posed to enjoy for a penny a view of the fashionable 
 world. 
 
 "Sit down if you like, Jules," said Madame 
 Duvernoy; "Henri and I are going on. If you think 
 I've put my brown velvet on for nothing ! " 
 
 " Tu es coquette, maman," said Henri, smiling. 
 
 "Well, it suits her," said Monsieur Duvernoy, with 
 returning good temper. "You mustn't laugh at her, 
 or I shan't treat you to cakes at Gage's." 
 
 They laughed all three, remembering the now dis- 
 tant days when little Henri, in a striped red-and- 
 white suit, was taken solemnly every Sunday into 
 
62 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 the shop of the great pastrycook, Avenue Victor 
 Hugo, and there feasted on cakes. 
 
 "Ah," said Henri, "it's all very well talking of 
 Gag6, papa, but you never would treat me a cake 
 costing forty centimes." 
 
 The Avenue du Bois was already very full. Young 
 men passed in twos and threes, most of them im- 
 maculate but suggesting by their ceremonious air, 
 their elaborate light ties and tiny walking-sticks, that 
 they were taking part in a rite. Many mothers went 
 by with their daughters, the parent elaborately 
 dressed, buxom and flat-backed, the girls short and 
 already plump, in modest but extremely light cloth- 
 ing, demure but watchful from the corners of their 
 eyes. And family parties too — fat untidy fathers with 
 shiny faces and wives like badly tied bundles, and 
 rowdy, bare-legged, pale-faced boys, and dignified 
 little girls with stiff locks and much regard for their 
 short stubby frocks; South Americans whose linen 
 contrasted with their dark skins and jewellery; 
 and many young couples — the man aggressively 
 smart, though sometimes unshaven, the woman a 
 thing of steel and leather, with fine bold eyes and 
 blazing hair. Among them ran the dogs, curious 
 mongrels, collie sheep-dogs and spaniel Airedales, for 
 no dog shows breed in Paris except the imported fox- 
 terrier and the occasional Italian greyhound. Here 
 and there, on one of the little chairs, sat a handsome 
 woman who held on a long leash a fine poodle with 
 a silver bracelet on one paw. Beyond, in the road- 
 way, carriages passed, drawn by poor horses and 
 sporting poor liveries, carrying towards the Bois a 
 staider edition of the pedestrians. 
 
 The Duvernoys were drowned in the crowd, and, 
 already, much to Madame Duvernoy's satisfaction. 
 
LE SPOR' 63 
 
 Henri and her husband had three times taken off 
 their hats. 
 
 "That was Madame Bergstein and her daughter," 
 Madame Duvernoy remarked. 
 
 "Ah?" said Monsieur Duvernoy. "Do you still 
 see them?" 
 
 "Yes, sometimes. One has to, you know. Of 
 course Lucie is getting rather old to have her hair 
 down her back ; but it's no good, they'll never marry 
 her. No dot to speak of, and she affiches ^ herself 
 with everybody." 
 
 "I hate that Bergstein woman," said Henri, "and 
 the way Lucie looks at me . . ." 
 
 "Ah, ah. Monsieur Don Juan again," said Mon- 
 sieur Duvernoy. 
 
 Henri blushed, but was rescued from further chaff 
 by a sudden meeting with several friends : Monsieur 
 Samaro, Consul for some obscure South American 
 state, and his wife, their two swarthy daughters and 
 their fox-terrier, together with Carlheim, the coulis- 
 sier, who formed a noisy group where the Avenue 
 Malakoff cleaves in two the Avenue du Bois. There 
 were cries from both sides. 
 
 "Ah, Madame, eiwhantee . . ." 
 
 " How long it is since we met I . . . And you, 
 Monsieur Carlheim, how are you ? " 
 
 "But it is Monsieur Henri ! Oh, but I must intro- 
 duce you to my daughters. Dolores ! Merced^ ! 
 where are you ? " 
 
 The swarthy daughters blazed brilliant smiles; 
 their liquid black eyes seemed to flow in the yellowish 
 whites. Carlheim's square jowl glittered fatly as he 
 lowered his bald head in deep bows. Monsieur 
 Duvernoy turned to Samaro : within a few seconds 
 » Flaunts. 
 
64 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 the word "concession" could be heard recurring in 
 the rastaquouere's^ guttural voice. Meanwhile, the 
 two mothers agitated the marriage of Mademoiselle 
 Stein. 
 
 "What do you think ! " screamed Madame Samaro, 
 "marrying the Comte da Vieilleroche ! A little 
 German Jewess ! " 
 
 "Disgusting," agreed Madame Duvernoy. "No 
 wonder he wanted six millions." 
 
 "Seven, ma chere amie, seven, and it's none too 
 much." 
 
 "These Jews, they get everything, banks, news- 
 papers . . ." 
 
 "Yes, and decorations, and seats in the S^nat . . . 
 ah ! ma chere Madame Duvernoy, what is France 
 to become?" wailed the South American. 
 
 "Finished, the country's finished," said Monsieur 
 Duvernoy over his shoulder. 
 
 Meanwhile, Dolores and Mercedes were trying to 
 put Henri at his ease. He stood by them smiling 
 and awkwardly swinging his stick ; these two massive 
 girls with their splendid figures, enormous eyes, 
 heavy black hair, overpowered him by sheer weight. 
 They talked furiously, but kept very close to the 
 skirts of Madame Samaro. Within one minute Henri 
 had been asked whether he liked le spor', whether he 
 was going to the dance of the de Torraltas, whether 
 he liked Monsieur Bergeret, and did he not think that 
 Anatole France was a sale socialiste. 
 
 " Oui, oui," he said vaguely ; then with an effort, 
 "you have a pretty dog." 
 
 "N'est-ce pas? " clamoured Dolores, "I adore him. 
 His name is O'dbay." 
 
 * Shady Hispano-American. 
 
LE SPOR' 65 
 
 "That means ojos de bitoque," ^ added Mercedes, 
 and, for no apparent reason, she flashed so bold a 
 glance at Henri that he blushed again. But now 
 Carlheim intervened with ponderous joviality, and at 
 once the girls turned towards him as lively and 
 seductive as if he were the younger man. All the 
 while Madame Samaro's lustrous eyes roved towards 
 them, listening to every word, while she kept up 
 exuberantly with Madame Duvernoy the wrangle as 
 to the dot of la petite Stein. And then, while Henri 
 stood disconsolately by, alone, lost, something 
 wonderful, beautiful happened : he saw Suzanne. 
 The Bernays, father, mother and daughter, passed 
 them by ; the two groups were too engrossed to notice 
 each other, but Suzanne and Henri's eyes crossed. 
 He just had time to take off his hat, see the short 
 upper lip curl in a faint smile, the dark eyes sparkle, 
 and she was gone. 
 
 "Who's that you saluted, Henri? " asked Madame 
 Duvernoy, who had seen his gesture. 
 
 "A friend," said Henri. 
 
 There were little cries of protest. 
 
 "Oh, oh, mystere . . . Monsieur Henri, really. 
 . . . You must look after him, ma chere Madame 
 Duvernoy. . . ." 
 
 And suddenly Henri realised he had lied as 
 defensively as a man raises his arm to ward off a 
 blow. 
 
 n 
 
 It was one o'clock. The elder Duvernoys, having 
 been duly taken to meet more friends in the All^e 
 
 '■ Goggle-eyes. 
 
66 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 des Acacias, had gone home to lunch, while Henri, 
 who claimed that the day was too fine to waste, turned 
 towards the grounds of the Racing Club de France. 
 His was a curious blended mood, for he felt joyful 
 and yet worried, as if expecting and fearing some- 
 thing which might come, delightful perhaps and per- 
 haps sorry. He was waiting for some event and 
 mentally warding it off. He turned towards the lake 
 without seeing Madame Sarlat-Cohen drive past in 
 an open carriage with another woman and a dragoon 
 in full dress. He stopped to look at the lake, whose 
 pale green surface was everjrwhere corrugated by the 
 wind, at the swans who swam past him, slow and 
 majestic, bearing as thuribles the blazing torches of 
 their beaks. And he was suddenly invaded by an 
 inflowing conviction that all things were very beauti- 
 ful and a little melancholy, that there were ideals he 
 did not know, desires he barely perceived; in all 
 humility he wondered whether he could be happy, 
 whether he deserved to be, whether he had wings 
 to fly with, skies to fly to. His dream persisted 
 as he went on towards the Club grounds, for the 
 vision of universal beauty floated in the scantily clad 
 branches of the young trees; it gilded the gravel 
 drive, the rough pavilion, the little clustering tables 
 where a few young men sat in front of the athlete's 
 non-alcoholics, the cinder track even, where he could 
 see three youths in running shorts practising starts. 
 He stood for some minutes watching a man put the 
 weight. He was a big broad fellow, English prob- 
 ably, and every time he threw his shoulder back to 
 poise the weight and swayed upon his bent haunches 
 a long stringy muscle appeared on his side through 
 the thin shirt. He too was beautiful. 
 
LE SPOR' 67 
 
 "Well, mon vieux," said a voice at his elbow, "I've 
 been waiting for you for a quarter of an hour." 
 
 "Ah, Javal, pardon. I've been promenading my 
 ancestors," said Henri, with a slight start as he awoke 
 from his dream. 
 
 "All right then, I forgive you, duty is a noble 
 thing," Javal answered good-humouredly. He was 
 a short dark youth, with long black hair parted in 
 the middle and combed back. He had an agreeable 
 pale face, dark eyes, a little jet-black moustache with 
 waxed ends. His blue serge suit and red tie, his grey 
 felt hat, seemed to emphasise his neat, rather barber- 
 ish air. On the third finger of his left hand he wore 
 a heavy gold ring. 
 
 "Ma foi," he added, "I thought you were never 
 coming, but there is no rush for tables. We had 
 better lunch at once or we shan't be able to play until 
 three." 
 
 "Oh, digestion," said Henri, with a self-satisfied 
 air, "you think too much of upsetting yourself; what 
 does it matter if you do play as soon as you've done 
 lunch? Now I " : 
 
 "All right," Javal interrupted, "you'll tell me about 
 that later on." 
 
 The hypochondriac turned towards the pavilion, 
 followed by the eupeptic Henri. His thin dark frame 
 could not stand ill usage as could that of the heavier 
 fair youth ; his health, which was not so feeble as he 
 thought, featured in his life, prescribed certain exer- 
 cises and even limited his pleasures. All through 
 lunch Henri rallied him rather ponderously. 
 
 "Now then, Javal, no radishes, bad for bile. And, 
 what do I see — claret? acid, my boy, acid. Gout, 
 rheumatism, you've gof them already, haven't you ?" 
 
 F « 
 
68 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 "Do not be idiotic," grumbled Javal. 
 
 "Idiotic? Not at all. You must be careful : you 
 know you over-eat. Why, you ought to be a 
 vegetarian ! " 
 
 "Ah, fiche-moi la paix." 
 
 "There, you're losing your temper now. That 
 means sedatives, no dances, no love. . . ." 
 
 "Ah, love," said Javal viciously, "you know a lot 
 about that. Pass me the mutton." 
 
 Henri passed him the mutton; then, rather sub- 
 dued, he spoke again. 
 
 "Ah, love! it's a beautiful thing." 
 
 Javal began to laugh. 
 
 "Oh, la, la, mon pauvre Duvernoy, you're not 
 going to idealise that sort of thing." 
 
 "Well, what are you going to idealise if you don't 
 idealise that?" Henri asked a little tartly. 
 
 The dark youth looked at him with an air of pity, 
 twisting his little black moustache. 
 
 "Nothing, of course. What do you want to 
 idealise anything for? I tell you, idealism's a coat 
 of paint you put on a rotten wall to make it look 
 new." 
 
 "Love's not a rotten wall. It's the only thing 
 worth while." 
 
 Javal looked at him round-eyed. 
 
 "I say," he remarked very slowly, "you're not in 
 love, Duvernoy? That would be a bad business." 
 
 "Well, supposing I was? There's no harm in it," 
 Henri stammered. He felt a blush creep up his 
 cheeks. 
 
 Javal played with his fork for a while without 
 raising his eyes. 
 
 "No, I don't say there is. I, for instance, you 
 
LE SPOR' 69 
 
 know that Madame Vallot . . . well, everybody 
 knows that . . . but anyhow it's not for life. I don't 
 pretend to myself that it's the first time I ever loved. 
 It isn't," he added complacently. 
 
 "Oh, I know," said Henri, "everybody knows that 
 story. You're not in love with her." 
 
 "Yes, I am; I'm always in love with the woman 
 of the day. But I know how long those things last, 
 while you . . ." 
 
 "I what?" 
 
 "Oh, you, you're different," said Javal. "You're 
 full of ideas about pure lives and the fireside and 
 children. Bourgeois, that's what it is." 
 
 Henri flushed under the insult. To be a bourgeois 
 is terrible, for it is a low thing, and yet one cannot 
 easily refute the charge. They ate their cheese in 
 silence. Both had their eyes fixed on one of the 
 tennis courts where three young girls were playing 
 with a middle-aged man. Their bounds and little 
 cries held their attention. Then Javal burst out 
 again. 
 
 " Vois-tu, Duvernoy, that's all very well when 
 you've done with everything else. No hurry, you 
 see : have a good time, understand that women don't 
 matter, even if they are charming. Fall in love if 
 you like, but keep your head cool. La grande 
 passion, that's very fine au Theatre Sarah Bernhardt ; 
 but in life there are other things : one's position, and 
 money. La galette,^ mon vieux, la galette." 
 
 "Oh, la galette," said Henri impatiently, "of course 
 it counts, but there are other things . . . marriage." 
 
 "For others, not me." 
 
 "If everybody said that . . ." 
 
 1 Cash, 
 
yo THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 "Well, everybody doesn't, so what are you bother- 
 ing about? Believe me, find a nice woman, une 
 femme du monde, it'll do you good." 
 
 "I_you don't know " Henri began to stam- 
 mer; he could not give away the fact that his 
 infrequent intrigues did not ravage the smart set. 
 
 "Of course I don't know. That's just like you, 
 Duvernoy; you think those things important. They 
 aren't; or they're as important as you think them. 
 My programme's another ten years. . . ." 
 
 "And ten affairs?" Henri suggested. 
 
 "At least," replied Javal smoothly; "life is short, 
 and there's nothing much in it. I mean to get what 
 I can out of it: money, love, position. Then I shall 
 be thirty-five, find a nice girl with a good little dot, 
 and be as good a pere de famille as you." 
 
 "What do you call a good dot?" 
 
 "Oh, that depends. A couple of hundred thousand 
 francs." 
 
 "That's a lot. What do you think of fifty 
 thousand ? " 
 
 Javal looked at him amazed, then shocked. 
 
 " Voyons, you're not serious. Fifty thousand 
 francs ! " 
 
 "Well," said Henri, with an effort, "say fifty 
 thousand francs and beauty and . , . and . . . being 
 in love ... all that." 
 
 Javal exploded. 
 
 "But this is ridiculous. Beauty, love, you don't 
 want that in your own wife. It only makes trouble 
 with your friends. You must marry when you've 
 done with all that. Le manage c'est la retraite." 
 
 "Not for me," said Henri suddenly; "the girl I 
 want's not got . . ." He stopped and grew very red. 
 
LE SPOR' 71 
 
 "All over," said Javal mournfully. "Caught. 
 Finished, I understand. Who is it ? " 
 
 " Nobody you know." 
 
 "What do your people say?" 
 
 "They don't know either." 
 
 "jEfein?" asked Javal. "Then what? It's the real 
 thing. . . . Well, I always thought you were soft. 
 You'll get over it, old fellow, when your mother finds 
 out." 
 
 "I shan't," Henri said defiantly, but with a sinking 
 heart. "As soon as I've spoken to ... to the jeune 
 fille I was talking about . . ." 
 
 "What?" Javal roared, convulsed with laughter. 
 "Is that as far as you've got?" 
 
 Henri watched him, angry and silent. At last Javal 
 pulled himself together. 
 
 "You won't tell me who it is? No? Well, believe 
 me, don't marry a girl with fifty thousand francs dot. 
 Even I, who earn two hundred and fifty francs a 
 month at the Lyonnais, I couldn't do it. You, you'll 
 be rich." 
 
 "All the more reason; I shall be able to afford it." 
 
 "One never can afford to miss having money." 
 
 "Money's not happiness." 
 
 "No, but it's pleasure, an excellent substitute." 
 
 Henri shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "Look here," he said, "that'll do. Let's start while 
 we can get a court." 
 
 After vainly pestering him with questions, Javal 
 agreed; they went into the pavilion, a queer wooden 
 structure almost entirely taken up by a large room 
 surrounded by lockers. Half-a-dozen young men 
 were changing into their costumes de tennis; already 
 some of them, in white ducks held up by coloured 
 
72 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 sashes, fancy shirts and linen collars, stood about in 
 set attitudes, as they rectified in front of the looking- 
 glass the lie of their hair. 
 
 "Ce tennis," remarked one of them to a friend, "it 
 does derange one's parting." 
 
 His friend, equally elegant, poured into his hand- 
 kerchief a few drops of eau-de-Cologne. The English- 
 man, bare to the waist, lay upon a couch while a 
 Frenchman massaged his side. He had strained 
 himself, and, at intervals, loudly damned his friend. 
 From another room could be heard the swishing of the 
 shower-bath. At last Henri and Javal were ready. 
 Both dressed in white flannel trousers, one in a soft 
 pink, the other in a cellular white, shirt, their feet 
 shod in rubber-soled but sharp-toed shoes, they made 
 for the courts. 
 
 HI 
 
 The couple had dawdled too long in the pavilion, 
 for all the courts were tenanted. Under the glowing 
 sunshine five doubles and two singles were proceed- 
 ing. From beyond the courts they could see the 
 players, little splashes of white or light colours on 
 the dark beaten earth. Javal carefully selected a court 
 where he had seen the same four playing before they 
 went out of the pavilion, then sat down with Henri 
 on the neighbouring bench, his coat pulled over his 
 shoulders. As they smoked their cigarettes they 
 could watch the indifferent game. Three young men 
 played with a short, plump girl, all of them badly, 
 all shouting whenever they passed a ball, whenever 
 they lodged one into the net. 
 
LE SPOR' 73 
 
 "Ah, le beau smash," said the girl, as an accident 
 drove a ball swift as a bullet. 
 
 The three young men ran about, busy, eager, 
 all alike almost : short, thin, dark, pale-faced and 
 black-haired. From the last court the monotonous 
 voice of the umpire could be heard as he sat over a 
 match. 
 
 " Trente — Love, Lavaux mene." 
 
 Then cries from one of the young men as a ball 
 passed him. "A hole in my racket ! " 
 
 There were laughs at the customary pleasantry. 
 The girl's side was practically beaten, for the sixth 
 game was going against her. Still they fought at 
 deuce, four times returning to equality. 
 
 "They'll never be done," said Javal gloomily. 
 
 "Oh yes," said Henri the optimist; "accidents 
 happen." 
 
 Still the weary game went on. The umpire called, 
 faraway: " Qv^Lrante— Trente, Dallin mene." 
 
 Idly Henri watched two young men at the next 
 court who were waiting their turn. They stood com- 
 paring their muscles, proudly compelling them to 
 appear under the shirt-sleeves. One, a tall, fair youth 
 with a long, projecting nose, threw them a quick 
 glance to see whether he was observed; meeting 
 Henri's eyes, he squared his shoulders. 
 
 "This victory of yours is a Malplaquet," cried the 
 girl, as she ran. 
 
 She, too, cast a look at Henri and Javal whenever 
 she hit a ball over the net; her partners also sought 
 app-reciation ; they even tried to extort it from the 
 young couple whose muscles were so important. But 
 suddenly Henri observed them no more. His roving 
 eyes had caught sight of a familiar figure , . . 
 
74 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 could it be? No; she was not so short . . • and 
 yet . . . Coming down the path, between a lady 
 in grey and a tall girl with a swinging gait, whose 
 coloured face underlay a shaggy bush of black hair, 
 was a slim girl who walked with deliberation and 
 slow, her small hands crossed over her racket, her 
 eyes lowered and fringed with black. They drew 
 nearer, and a hot wave of excitement passed over 
 Henri. 
 
 "Enfin," muttered Javal, as the cry, "game and 
 set," delighted his ears. Henri took a few steps for- 
 ward, bowing awkwardly. Madame Bernay smiled; 
 the tall girl put out a large well-formed hand; but 
 Suzanne's little round head sank down on the long 
 neck, after her black eyes had for a second unveiled 
 and her very red lips parted in a smile. Henri 
 recovered his presence of mind with an effort; he 
 was shaken by his emotion, unable to speak or reason 
 while in the zone of Suzanne's femininity. 
 
 "Madame . . . quelle surprise!" he stammered. 
 
 "Just the thing for us," began the tall girl; "we 
 want a court and partners. Hein, Suzanne?" 
 
 "But perhaps ces messieurs . . ." began Madame 
 Bernay; then the tall girl swept her away. 
 
 "That's all right? Hein? You're not waiting for 
 anybody?" Her dark eyes flashed; she tossed her 
 mop of black hair. The hard tones of her voice were 
 all assertion, struggle for life. 
 
 " Certainement," said Henri; "we are delighted, 
 my friend and I. Allow me . . . Madame Bernay, 
 Monsieur Javal ; Mademoiselle Bernay, Mademoiselle 
 de Morenda." 
 
 Javal bowed, smiled, twisted his little black mous- 
 tache. Mademoiselle de Morenda had already told 
 
LE SPOR' 75 
 
 him in two sharp sentences that she would play with 
 him. 
 
 "Little men run faster," she said brutally. "Got 
 any balls ? Yes, all right. Hurry up, Suzanne." 
 
 Suzanne was conducting an intimate conversation 
 about nothing with Henri, while Madame Bernay 
 stood by, benevolent and silent. The sharp voice 
 made them start and blush. Henri laughed happily, 
 and, without reason, Suzanne chimed in. 
 
 " How do we play ? " Suzanne asked. " Have you 
 settled it, Letitia ? " 
 
 "Monsieur Javal and I," said Mademoiselle de 
 Morenda. 
 
 Javal twirled his racket round, won the "toss." 
 
 "We win," said Letitia; "off you go, both of you, 
 face to the sun. Madame Bernay, sit down there. 
 You serve first. Monsieur." 
 
 As Henri and Suzanne shyly walked away under 
 this vigorous stage management, the young man was 
 glad that a strong hand had settled difficulties which 
 his disturbed mind could not have struggled with. 
 
 "She has energy, Mademoiselle de Morenda," he 
 said, with a laugh. 
 
 "She wants it, poor girl," said Suzanne. "She is 
 not happy, believe me." 
 
 "Ah?" 
 
 "No; the only daughter of a widow, no dot, not 
 many friends." 
 
 "I suppose that's why she does not hesitate to 
 capture people at sight." The dark eyes looked 
 reproachful. 
 
 "You are not very kind. Monsieur Duvernoy. You 
 do not understand how hard things are for girls like 
 her." 
 
76 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 "Oh yes, yes," protested Henri, "I do, I do." He 
 did not understand in the least; indeed, he had for- 
 gotten Letitia; he could only think of that red mouth 
 which had just pouted with irritation. 
 
 The excitement upset his game; with despair in 
 his heart, he vainly tried to pick up Javal's detest- 
 able screw service. He nearly fell on his face on a 
 back-handed return. Mademoiselle de Morenda 
 laughed. 
 
 "Oh, la, la; you are finished." And they were, 
 for Letitia, by a powerful half-volley, neatly placed 
 the last ball between her opponents. 
 
 Henri was serving now. He had pulled himself 
 together, and Suzanne, at the net, had little to do, for 
 the other side returned steadily to the base line. As 
 she ran to and fro she had a pleasant vision of Henri, 
 his light-brown hair tumbled, his mouth open, his 
 blue eyes flashing with excitement. And as she 
 placed a ball on his racket, she saw, with a little 
 thrill, the golden down on his round white forearms. 
 The game went on, animated by a double energy : 
 Letitia's, whose thick jaw had set into a hard line, 
 for her fighting soul could not bear to lose; Henri's, 
 who was unconsciously fighting for his Lady. 
 Suzanne and Javal, less passionate and less able, 
 naturally fell into the background, neglected balls 
 with a look of appeal in their eyes, fetched supplies 
 from the stop nets. 
 
 In the intervals of the game Henri looked at 
 Suzanne. She was exquisite now; so dainty in her 
 white drill blouse and skirt, and so light, so fairy-like ; 
 but the fairy had a sweet plenitude of form. Suzanne 
 seemed to ignore his glances; at times she smiled at 
 her mother, who sat by the net watching the game. 
 
LEiSPOR' 77 
 
 Fortune, however, turned against them ; Suzanne lost 
 her service, and Letitia, with four balls as lucky as 
 they were hard, won the set by six to three. 
 
 "La revanche, la revanche," cried Henri. 
 
 They changed over, in spite of Madame Bernay's 
 protests that Suzanne was getting overheated. 
 
 "She'll catch cold," she wailed. 
 
 "Mais non," Letitia settled; "you wrap her up in 
 cotton-wool." 
 
 The new set proceeded at the same quick pace. 
 The rallies were few, most of the balls going out or 
 refusing to rise at all. The two sides were neck and 
 neck; excitement seemed to grow on them. Javal's 
 black hair hung matted on his forehead, while Letitia, 
 with an Amazonian sweep of her arm, had burst the 
 buttons of one sleeve. Suzanne ran for Henri, wildly 
 excited and yet trembling ; she was inconceivably dis- 
 quieted by this big fellow, whose cheeks were now 
 bright red, by his gay smile. A ball rolled to her 
 feet; as she bent to pick it up, Henri thrust out his 
 hand. . . . 
 
 For a second neither realised what had happened. 
 Then Henri knew that their hair had mixed, that his 
 cheek had for a second touched the hot smoothness of 
 her own, that his nostrils were full of a sweet, reminis- 
 cent perfume, that he did not dare look at her. They 
 played now automatically, avoiding one another's 
 eyes; but by some tacit and exquisite understanding 
 Henri no longer placed balls on her racket ; he handed 
 them to her, and a thrill passed through him every 
 time her finger-tips touched his. At last the game 
 came to a close ; by luck more than skill Henri seemed 
 to triumph; he pressed Letitia, unmercifully return- 
 ing balls towards her feet or viciously straight at her 
 
78 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 body. They won. A happy smile was on Suzanne's 
 
 lips. 
 
 "Merci, Monsieur," she said. And he knew that 
 she meant, "You won for me." 
 
 The conversation lay mainly between Madame 
 Bernay, Javal and Letitia, for Henri and Suzanne 
 were still quivering with excitement. Then Monsieur 
 and Madame Duvernoy arrived to meet their son, for 
 it was nearly four o'clock. The increase in the size 
 of the party further isolated the young people. 
 
 "Tiens," said Madame Duvernoy, "there's la petite 
 Stein. Do you know, Madame, she's going to marry 
 Monsieur de Vieilleroche ? " 
 
 "So they say," said Madame Bernoy. "Well, well, 
 she's very rich." 
 
 "She'd have to be," said Monsieur Duvernoy, who • 
 affected innuendo. 
 
 "Yes," added Madame Duvernoy; "and they say 
 she didn't want to marry him; that she wanted to 
 marry a cousin of hers, somebody called Levi or 
 Isaac, or something of that kind. Ridiculous ! Why, 
 in my time one married anybody, and knew one 
 could console oneself after." 
 
 " Marthe ! " s^id Monsieur Duvernoy severely, as 
 Madame Bernay began to laugh. "Really, there are 
 jokes . . ." 
 
 "Oh, with us it was exceptional." 
 
 "It's always exceptional," suddenly said Made- 
 moiselle de Morenda, turning away from an appar- 
 ently absorbing conversation with Javal. "My 
 marriage will be, at any rate ; I intend to marry whom 
 I like, or nobody. If I'm an old maid, well, there'll 
 be a man who's missed happiness, voila tout." 
 
 " Voyons, Letitia," Madame Bernay expostulated. 
 
LE SPOR' 79 
 
 "Oh," sighed Madame Duvernoy, "you are frank, 
 Mademoiselle. This English education is costing us 
 our daughters." 
 
 "Pardon me, Madame, it's costing you la jeune 
 fille, and a good riddance," said Javal in smooth 
 tones. 
 
 "Oh, Monsieur . . ." cried both women, while 
 Monsieur Duvernoy shrugged his shoulders and 
 muttered something about doctrines immorales ; but 
 Letitia threw herself into the fray. 
 
 "Yes," she cried, "you are right, Monsieur. It's 
 about time we had done with la jeune fille, who 
 marries as she leaves the convent not knowing what 
 marriage is, but knowing, six months after, what a 
 lover is. We know what she's worth : her downcast 
 eyes, which see nothing until they see evil, her Andr^ 
 Theuriet public reading and her private Pierre Louys, 
 her delicacies, which make her call tennis indecent, 
 but don't prevent her from going to a dance dressed 
 as if she were going for a bathe, while her mother 
 watches her and her . . . admirers. Faugh ! I'd 
 rather be an old maid than be like . . . like . . ." 
 
 "Like me ? " said Suzanne, with a laugh. 
 
 "Do not be ridiculous, Letitia,'' said Madame 
 with some asperity. "Really, you say things you 
 shouldn't sometimes." 
 
 "Well, I only said them in reply to what you said 
 behind me." 
 
 "Oh," said Madame Duvernoy, "that's different. 
 . . . It's . . . you're not . . ." 
 
 "Not supposed to hear ! " Letitia almost screamed. 
 "Listen to that, Suzanne, and you. Monsieur Duver- 
 noy, and you, Monsieur. There's the jeune fille busi- 
 ness for you. To hear and not to understand! To 
 
8o THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 pretend ! To pretend to be silly, pure-minded, inno- 
 cent ! And for what ? For the sake of offering the 
 blase palates of our old young men, when at last they 
 condescend, the novel refreshment of simplicity ! " 
 
 Monsieur Duvernoy jumped up with an angry 
 gesture. Suzanne and Henri blushed scarlet, while 
 Javal laughed, rather cynically, as he looked with 
 appreciation at the girl's handsome defiant figure. 
 Letitia regretted her last sentence as soon as she had 
 spoken it, and tried to make amends, for she realised 
 her precarious position in society ; but the two women 
 practically refused to speak to her. They drew aside 
 and confided to one another that Letitia was becoming 
 impossible. Javal gently thrust himself between the 
 older people and Letitia, to whom he began to talk 
 in low tones, so that Henri and Suzanne were alone. 
 
 "I hate to hear Letitia talk like that," Suzanne 
 muttered hurriedly. 
 
 "Yes," said Henri; "it does nobody any good, and 
 it'll do her harm. Why, any man would think twice 
 before asking for her hand." 
 
 "I suppose so," said Suzanne; then, as if musing, 
 "Yes, I suppose men want us to be gentle and 
 submissive and . . ." 
 
 "Pretty." 
 
 "Yes, pretty and elegant, and good housewives. 
 And those who aren't all that?" 
 
 "Some are," said Henri, with unpremeditated bold- 
 ness. And as he looked into her eyes she blushed at 
 the clumsy compliment; even her small ears and her 
 little tip-tilted nose glowed. 
 
 "Shall I see you on mother's day?" Henri asked 
 suddenly. 
 
 Suzanne's eyes veiled quickly. 
 
LE SPOR' 8 1 
 
 "Perhaps," she said hurriedly; "and we are giving 
 a dance soon. But please speak to Letitia," she 
 faltered. "Oui, maman, 1 am ready." 
 
 Henri was now her accomplice. He must speak to 
 Letitia, but — delicious thought — he was plotting with 
 Suzanne. He did not, however, have to speak long 
 to the handsome virago. The Bernays and the 
 Duvernoys were convulsively trying to find out 
 whether the others were going, for it was now four 
 o'clock, and the horrible possibility that either family 
 might have to pay for seven teas at a franc each was 
 looming on their respective horizons. 
 
 "We must go," said Madame Bernay and Madame 
 Duvernoy together. 
 
 "Yes," added Monsieur Duvernoy, "we must call 
 on friends in the Avenue Henri Martin." 
 
 " Charming people, les Michailopoulo." 
 
 "Ah, yes," said Madame Bernay, "I have met 
 them. Suzanne, come and put your hair straight." 
 
 The party broke up quickly, for the elder Duver- 
 noys were really about to pay a call, while the Bernays 
 had to return home, having saved their tea, to dress 
 for the stalls at the Vaudeville. 
 
 "Au revoir, Monsieur," said Suzanne. 
 
 "Au revoir, Mademoiselle," Henri niumbled. He 
 had held her small hot hand in his a second longer 
 than Matdemoiselle de Morenda's — a second, an 
 immense, a crucial sound. 
 
CHAPTER THE FIFTH 
 l'amour 
 
 I 
 
 Henri Duvernoy had in a sense left a life behind 
 him. He loved and now desperately knew it. He 
 felt that he was in her hands, her little hot hands, 
 the soft feel of which still haunted his palms, but he 
 did not rest there easily. They held him, and it was 
 delicious that they should ; they evoked other images, 
 Suzanne with her head on his shoulder, looking 
 with him at the harvest moon, Suzanne with her 
 arms round his neck, her lips upturned arid ex- 
 pectantly waiting his kisses; Suzanne his wife, more 
 intimate still, the harbour of his hopes, the mother 
 of his children. And above all floated the principle 
 of Suzanne, something wonderfully subtle and 
 eucharistic, perfectly pure and yet intoxicating, the 
 dream of life and its business too. But, as he walked 
 the streets and thought of her, worked at the etude 
 and tried to draw her profile, while he desperately 
 strove to suggest her in dreams, he was haunted by 
 the feeling that all was not well with his love, that 
 it was ill-fated, that he might never gain Suzanne. 
 It was a great grief to him that she had no greater 
 dot than fifty thousand francs; he regretted it 
 because, after all, money is money, and you must 
 have it; he regretted it too because he knew very 
 
 82 
 
L'AMOUR 83 
 
 well that Suzanne's poverty might part them, that 
 his parents might never agree to the marriage. 
 
 For several days this thought intruded into the 
 revelry of his soul. He did not analyse it any more 
 than he accepted it; it merely was there and, when 
 it grew too insistent, he tried to thrust it away. He 
 saw himself as he was, a solicitor's clerk earning two 
 hundred francs a month and gaining such experience 
 as would enable him later on to start on his own 
 account by buying a practice. But a practice was 
 an expensive thing; he cautiously inquired from one 
 of his seniors in the office, and heard that he could 
 hope to buy no genuine business under a hundred 
 thousand francs, and that he would want at least 
 twice as much if he was to be assured of a com- 
 petency. Certainly he would want a hundred and 
 fifty thousand francs and, even then, perhaps it 
 would have to be in the provinces. Would Suzanne 
 care to live in the provinces? Then his thoughts 
 immediately turned to another question : Would 
 Suzanne marry him at all? It occurred continually 
 and infallibly tortured him ; it was bad enough that 
 extraordinary difficulties should lie before him, that 
 he should foresee a struggle with his parents and a 
 set-back in his career, but it was worse still that he 
 should not know whether she cared for him at all. 
 How could he have the strength to win her if he did 
 not know whether she could be won by him ? This 
 torturing idea was in a sense a great comfort to his 
 uncertain mind, for it helped him to blind himself 
 to material difficulties. When it occurred to him he 
 at once thrust away all thoughts of his people, pon- 
 dered on his chances of meeting Suzanne, of extort- 
 ing from her the avowal he hoped for, and when at 
 G a 
 
84 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 last, having conquered and fascinated her (for he 
 was very successful in those mental contests), he 
 returned to practical questions, he would tell himself : 
 "Then I shall speak to my mother, there's plenty of 
 time for that." 
 
 He was not, just then, very happy at home, though 
 he did not guess the reason. Madame Duvernoy had 
 not seen everything at the Racing Club; she had 
 not seen their faces touch, nor even their hands cling, 
 but she had felt even more than there had been to 
 see. The atmosphere of the young couple had not 
 left her undisturbed ; though her mind could fix upon 
 nothing she realised very clearly that Suzanne was 
 charmingly pretty, that Henri was a good-looking 
 young man, that they liked to look at one another, 
 and that they did not do so with the bold simplicity of 
 people who are nothing to each other . This was enough 
 to make her speculate as to the unpleasant results that 
 might follow upon this new intimacy. She had nothing 
 against Suzanne ; had Madame Duvernoy been born a 
 Duvernoy she might have objected to the girl, but the 
 plebeian blood of the Lacours had not been purified 
 by the sisters of the Oiseaux; as it was she did not 
 dislike Bernay and she did not resent his rather doubt- 
 ful reputation, for after all her father too had won 
 and lost battles on the Bourse. Still, she had absorbed 
 enough of the solid Duvernoy tradition to think that 
 the Bernays were hardly a family into which her son 
 should marry. She knew also that Bernay had no 
 fortune; he might make a great deal at times, but 
 his was the kind of income which was mortgaged 
 before it came in. Probably a lucky deal meant that 
 the situation created by a bad one was saved, and 
 no more. She did not feel that there was any 
 
L'AMOUR 85 
 
 strength in his fortune; to-morrow he might be a 
 millionaire, but he might be a pauper. Thus, while 
 Suzanne could hardly hope for a good dot, she could 
 not even be said to have expectations. No, it would 
 never do. She had a short conversation with her 
 husband and found him on the whole in agreement 
 with her. 
 
 "Of course," said Monsieur Duvernoy, as wrinkles 
 formed on his dark forehead, "it would be very 
 annoying. I know Bernay can't give anything to 
 speak of." 
 
 "Everybody knows that," replied Madame Duver- 
 noy. "Not more than fifty thousand francs, and 
 when we think how young Henri is . . . well, he 
 ought to get two hundred and fifty thousand." 
 
 "Yes," said Monsieur Duvernoy, "still, perhaps 
 a little less . . ." 
 
 "No," said Madame Duvernoy fiercely. Her little 
 mouth shut tight and her dark eyes flashed. Deep 
 down in her hieart she felt a passionate hatred for 
 this family which was interfering with her peace of 
 mind, which was endangering the prospects of her 
 son, her one loved thing. Ah, if she must see him 
 go, she must sell him, dear, dear, make the thief 
 world pay. She would make it pay the full price 
 for this beautiful godlike being, her only son. 
 
 "Well," said Monsieur Duvernoy, "we haven't 
 come to that. Meanwhile, Marthe, pas d'histoires. 
 You know what I said about the Damascus rail- 
 way." 
 
 "Ah," Madame Duvernoy burst out. "What does 
 it matter ? " 
 
 "It matters what it matters. It may be a his 
 thing." 
 
86 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 "Henri is a big thing." 
 
 "And the railway's a big thing. When Henri 
 shows signs it'll be time." 
 
 "It'll be too late." 
 
 "It'll not be too late. He will listen to his 
 father." 
 
 Madame Duvernoy shrugged her fat shoulders as 
 if to say that Henri would laugh in his father's face, 
 but her husband incidentally carried his point. Of 
 course Henri wouldn't bother about his father, but 
 he'd listen to his mother. So she could be comfort- 
 able and let the family draw what it could out of 
 the railway case. Still, she was not comfortable, for 
 she realised that her husband could not be sure of 
 acting for Bernay unless social relations were kept 
 up; indeed she knew that the responsibility largely 
 rested on her shoulders, that she must call on 
 Madame Bernay, drink her tea, admire her frocks, 
 praise Suzanne and, by replying to the questions that 
 courtesy would dictate as to her son's .health and 
 doings, feed the dangerous flame in the breast of 
 the enchantress. She would have to dine with the 
 villains, meet them at the houses of her friends, bow, 
 chat in the All^ des Acacias; she would have to see 
 them at her Wednesdays and smile as they delayed, 
 while she watched the clock and knew that every 
 minute Henri's return was becoming more likely. 
 
 The atmosphere in the Rue de Marignan became 
 all the more electric and affected every member of 
 the family. Monsieur Duvernoy alternated between 
 fits of sulkiness when he was speculating as to his 
 wife's probable state of mind if the attachment 
 sprang up and fits of irritation when he saw himself 
 losing one of those cases barristers love, a beautiful 
 
L'AMOUR 87 
 
 case full of letters, summary proceedings, objections, 
 interlocutions, guarantees, estreated recognisances, 
 appeals, Supreme Court proceedings, and fees, fees 
 all the time. As for his wife, she became hysterical, 
 for a Frenchwoman. Her eyes ever tended to follow 
 Henri as he walked, but now her glances were less 
 tender than suspicious; she would look at his good- 
 natured fair face from under her heavy eyebrows 
 and wonder whether he had anything to conceal, 
 whether the disease was already making inroads upon 
 the heart that should be her preserve. If she saw 
 him sit down with a newspaper she suspected that 
 he was only pretending to read so as to be alone with 
 his dream of Her ; in those moods she could have torn 
 it from him, screamed, stamped, thrown herself at 
 his knees begging him not to think of Her. At other 
 times she wanted to compete; she would throw 
 her arms round his neck when he returned from the 
 office, kiss him and take comfort in the astonishment 
 in his blue eyes. For then she told herself that he 
 loved her alone, that her love was so strong that it 
 could crowd out any other passion. 
 
 As for Henri, he was on the whole very unhappy. 
 Home was not yet a hell, but it was fitful, not restful. 
 He was not at war, but not at peace. He was too 
 deeply absorbed in his passion to realise the cross— - 
 currents which flowed round him. Never very 
 observant, he would not have realised them under 
 other circumstances; he would have put down his 
 father's moods to his bad temper, his mother's to 
 her excitability : now he hardly noticed anything. 
 He merely knew that the household was uncomfort- 
 able, but this knowledge was merely part of the 
 general malaise. For this reason he tended to stay 
 
88 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 away from home as much as he could, to arrive late 
 for lunch, to leave early and return but a few minutes 
 before dinner, alleging that there was pressure of 
 work at the office. His mother's reproachful looks 
 and his father's caustic remarks did not clear up the 
 situation for him; they merely fostered in him a 
 natural quality of obstinacy. 
 
 New traits developed in him too. For the first 
 time in his life he read some poetry. He had always 
 hated it on account of the extraordinary words poets 
 pick out of the dictionary, the way they twist sen- 
 tences and the amount of space they require to say 
 that the sky is blue. He now began to think more 
 kindly of poetry, and, having by accident found a 
 volume of Baudelaire, discovered "L'Hymne." It 
 fired him in his highly susceptible condition as 
 nothing had ever fired him before. With an intense 
 personal application he found himself repeating on his 
 way to the office — 
 
 "A la trhs chfere, k la trfes belle 
 Qui remplit mon coeur de clart6, 
 A I'ange, h. I'idole immortelle, 
 Salut en immortality." 
 
 One day his father found him pKjring over the 
 volume. 
 
 "Ah, ah, Monsieur est •poete!" he sneered. 
 
 Henri blushed, shut up the book and left the room, 
 passing his mother at the door. His father nodded 
 towards him as he closed the door. 
 
 "He was reading poetry." 
 
 " What ? " Madame Duvernoy placed her hand on 
 her heart. 
 
 "He was reading poetry." 
 
 "He was reading poetry! Oh, mon Dieu." 
 
L'AMOUR 89 
 
 The old people looked at one another dully. 
 Poetry, the messenger of doom ! 
 
 Henri continued to stay away. He found himself 
 more and more often in the Rue de Miromesnil, 
 where the Bernays lived. He knew every detail of 
 their block of flats, the tall white fa9ade; its wrought- 
 iron balconies, the white shutters, the brown-painted 
 door, the soldierly-looking concierge and his fat 
 untidy old wife. Everything in it was like its 
 counterpart in other houses, and yet exquisitely 
 different. He watched the smoke rise from the 
 chimneys and, though it was now May, pictured 
 Suzanne sitting by the fire, picking out his face from 
 among the glowing coals. 
 
 He never saw her. Once, at half-past six in the 
 evening, he saw Madame Bernay return carrying a 
 parcel, hurried, tired-looking. He almost loved her, 
 that woman who was of Suzanne's flesh and blood; 
 he had to restrain himself, for he wanted to go and 
 speak to her, hear her voice, which reminded him of 
 her daughter's. But he did not go, and Madame 
 Bernay disappeared under the porch. There were 
 mad moments when he thought of calling at the flat ; 
 he even climbed a flight of stairs once, then rushed 
 down again, feeling that all would be lost if he were 
 caught. 
 
 He slept badly, read more poetry, tended to grow 
 more gloomy. Still his uneasy mother feared to 
 speak, for she might have precipitated a crisis. At 
 last, one afternoon, as he sat in his office, his hopes 
 at their lowest, he conceived a daring plan. He 
 obtained leave to go, took a cab to the corner of the 
 Rue de Miromesnil. He stood there a second; soli- 
 tary, very frightened and deliciously elated, as he 
 
90 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 clutched tightly in his hand a sealed note. As he 
 walked towards the house his courage seemed to 
 dwindle. He stood before the concierge, conscious 
 only of a quiver in his knees. 
 
 "Oui, Monsieur?" said the woman. 
 
 "I want . , . Mademoiselle Bernay," he said in a 
 strangled voice. 
 
 "Second floor, Monsieur, but the ladies are out." 
 
 "Yes, . . . yes . . ." he muttered, "it doesn't 
 matter. . . ." Then he plunged : " I want you to 
 give this note to Mademoiselle Suzanne ... to her 
 personally . . . you understand ? " 
 
 The woman swept her untidy hair from her brow 
 and looked at the note, then at him doubtfully. 
 
 "Mon Dieu, Monsieur ... I hardly know if 
 1 . . ." 
 
 "Please . . . tenez . . . here are twenty francs 
 ... I pray you, Madame." 
 
 The woman smiled, took the money. 
 
 "Well, well, I too, I've been young." 
 
 She sighed. Henri muttered a few broken words 
 of thanks and rushed away. His feverish brain 
 repeated again and again the sentence he had 
 written — 
 
 "I love you, 
 
 "Henri Duvernov. 
 
 "Write H. D., Bureau 36." 
 
 II 
 
 Henri called at the Poste Restante as early as pos- 
 sible after breakfast. The post office was not on the 
 
L' AMOUR 91 
 
 direct route to his office, so that he had time to 
 experience most of the sensations that are open to a 
 lover; he hoped with extraordinary intensity, he 
 despaired when he realised his unworthiness, 
 trembled to think that she might censure him, that 
 she might even ignore him. It was, he felt at once, 
 certain that she would reply, for she must love him ; 
 certain that she would not, for what could he be to 
 her? The morning was fresh; a sharp breeze flut- 
 tered the foliage on the chestnut trees, which were 
 now growing bushy; the pale spring sunlight made 
 the grey paving stones look white, the figures of the 
 maids alert ; the dogs trotted rather than walked, and 
 even the cab-horses acquired some jauntiness. Henri 
 strode along, his broad shoulders squared, with light 
 in his blue eyes, an upward twist in his little red 
 moustache ; a trottin on her way to some shop in the 
 Faubourg St. Honor6 glanced at him approvingly, 
 but he had no eyes for little workgirls. 
 
 It was only when Henri stood in front of the 
 grating at the Poste Restante that he realised how 
 heavily his heart was beating against his ribs. It 
 was some time before he could make up his mind to 
 attract the attention of the splendid bureaucrat who 
 lolled behind the grating, reading Le Matin with 
 the great air of those who administer against the 
 people the people's laws. Henri looked anxiously 
 at the presence, who wore an exceedingly tight black 
 coat, a high collar, a waxed black moustache. At 
 last he coughed, mumbled his initials. The bureaucrat 
 languidly examined a mass of letters ; Henri watched 
 the slow dwindling of the pile of yellow commercial 
 envelopes, "pneumatic" letter cards, blue telegrams, 
 and letters in pink or blue covers; a faint scent 
 
92 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 of perfume rose towards him; letter fell on letter, 
 still nothing happened, his heart beat quicker . . . 
 and there were three, two . . . one. 
 
 "Nothing," said the official. He did not waste 
 even a single glance on the applicant, took up Le 
 Matin where he had left it. Henri found himself 
 outside the office, horribly alone. 
 
 The work at the etude Berquin was unfortunately 
 not so strenuous as to absorb Henri's thoughts. He 
 made desperate efforts to bend his mind to the sum- 
 marising of the common points in two mortgages, and 
 then did it all too easily; all through his task, as 
 he noted similarities in charges and liabilities for 
 repairs, his brain was racked by conflicting ques- 
 tions. Was she angry ? or ill ? or had the concierge 
 destroyed the letter? or perhaps her mother had 
 found it? This opened horrible vistas. Perhaps 
 he had compromised her, made her hate him, ruined 
 his own chances. On the other hand, perhaps it 
 would be a good thing if he had compromised her : 
 it would make matters easier. He was rather shocked 
 when he discovered himself thus reasoning like Bel- 
 Ami himself, for Henri was essentially a "nice" 
 youth. 
 
 The day dragged on wearily. Though it was not 
 hot the etude was stuffy, for its windows were never 
 opened save in the middle of August. Round him 
 the four other clerks sat at their work without zest; 
 at times they diverted their minds by reading up in 
 law digests the reports of the "in camera" parts of 
 famous divorce cases. Henri looked at them with 
 pity, at old Loupil, the chief clerk, whose short- 
 sighted eyes stood forth from his head like those of 
 a lobster, at Sarmin and Morel, who had ten years' 
 
L'AMOUR 93 
 
 service and could look forward to thirty more at the 
 same salary; at Varnier, the gay, rosy-faced boy, 
 whom he could see from the corner of his eye reading 
 the Froufrou. He wondered whether they loved, had 
 loved; he could not imagine that old Loupil had 
 ever had an idyll before he settled with Madame 
 Loupil in their cheap villa at Asni^res. And Morel 
 and Sarmin? Bachelors both, could there be any 
 beauty in their illicit pleasures? or in Varnier's? 
 No, at least he knew Varnier's, for the boy was 
 adored by the smart parlourmaids of the Avenue de 
 I'Alma. All of it, the pity and the poverty of it, 
 made him realise how favoured he was by fate, for 
 he loved beautifully and high. 
 
 The evening brought him no peace, for there was 
 no letter for him at Bureau 36. His depression was 
 so intense at dinner that his parents remarked on it, 
 suggested that he might be ill, without daring to 
 approach what they felt to be the probable reason. 
 Monsieur Duvernoy tried to draw him by reviling 
 the policy of M. Combes, but Henri did not respond. 
 After dinner all sat in the sombre dining-room ; the 
 little gilt clock ticked slowly; the shadows thrown 
 on the polished panels of the immense sideboard 
 trembled as the light of the lamp flickered. It was a 
 silent party; ■Monsieur Duvernoy sat in the big arm- 
 chair on the left of the tall painted stove, intent on 
 the Revue des Deux Mondes, while Madame Duver- 
 noy, at the head of the table, waded slowly through 
 the weekly books, which she was transferring to her 
 general accounts ledger. 
 
 Henri watched his parents with a moody air. He 
 hated to think that there was between him and the 
 mother he adored a secret he dared not entrust her 
 
94 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 with. His father did not trouble him much; he 
 could look at him with detachment as he sat with his 
 brow wrinkled, absorbing some dull article about the 
 iniquity of England and Germany or the futile ex- 
 cavations of Druidic altars in the Morbihan; he 
 could see him as a hard little man with blue eyes, a 
 perky grey moustache and a thin bad-tempered face ; 
 he knew him as domineering and, though he argued 
 well, retrograde and unsympathetic. But Henri's 
 mother was quite another thing. She sat stiffly in 
 the hard chair, her flat back parallel to its preposter- 
 ous colonnade, a picture of decision and business 
 ability. Her well-kept round hands checked off the 
 items, segregated them at great speed under their 
 proper headings. Henri looked at her smooth round 
 face, its restful gravity, at the energetic curves of her 
 small mouth. He felt that he had loved her as a 
 little boy when he could tell her he had hurt himself ; 
 but now he could not tell her. 
 
 She looked up, smiled in a rather forced manner. 
 
 "Well, Henri? What is it? You have nothing 
 to do?" 
 
 "Non, maman, I am rather tired." 
 
 "I suppose they asked you to do an hour's work," 
 sneered Monsieur Duvernoy, as he raised his eyes 
 from the review. 
 
 "Jules ! Do leave the boy alone. I'm sure he does 
 his work very well. Don't you, Henri?" 
 
 She threw him a half-inquiring, half-appealing 
 glance. Oh, what was he thinking of? 
 
 Henri did not answer, went to the balcony, looked 
 out over the yard towards the distant Eiftel Tower 
 as it thrust out over Paris its white, blue and red 
 searchlights. *It was a lovely starlit night, such a 
 
L'AMOUR 95 
 
 night as he would see on the honeymoon when he 
 had won Suzanne. Behind him he could hear his 
 father's short answers to his mother's questions. She 
 wanted help to unravel in her accounts a tangle pro- 
 duced in her dress allowance by the sale of an old. 
 fur coat to a dealer in cast-off clothes. Her husband 
 merely made contemptuous references to the com- 
 mercial incapacity of women without trying to help 
 her. Then he shut up the review and came to Henri's 
 side. For a moment they said nothing, but Jules 
 Duvernoy threw sidelong glances at his son. He 
 loved this boy in his peculiar grudging way, though 
 he hated him a little because he loved him. He was 
 glad that the boy was big and healthy, jealous 
 because he himself was undersized. It was a satis- 
 faction to feel himself cleverer than his son, though 
 he would have felt proud to be the father of a genius. 
 But now he hated him more than he loved him, for 
 he was conscious that something splendid had come 
 into his son's life, something he had not known. 
 Much of Monsieur Duvernoy's bitternfess came from 
 the fact that he knew he had not succeeded; he was 
 not great, like his ancestor the emigre judge, nor 
 well known like his own father, ^mile Duvernoy. 
 He was merely a barrister who made au Palais a 
 respectable living. He had failed at the Bar and he 
 had failed in love. He had never loved Marthe 
 Duvernoy; she had made him an excellent wife, and 
 that was the end of it. He could hardly bear to think 
 that Henri had stumbled, as fools will, upon a 
 paradise. 
 
 "Fine night, mon gargon," he said at last, forcing 
 himself to be cordial. 
 
 "Yes, it's a fine night. Summer is coming." 
 
96 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 "Do you get your holidays in August?" asked 
 Monsieur Duvernoy. "We're going to take a villa 
 at Dieppe this year." 
 
 "Ah?" said Henri, without any show of interest. 
 
 "Yes," said Monsieur Duvernoy, "it's more com- 
 fortable than an hotel, don't you think so ? " 
 
 "Oui, papa," Henri replied, without noticing that 
 his opinion was asked for, an unusual thing. 
 
 "You are very distrait to-night, Henri," Monsieur 
 Duvernoy said, his sardonic manner suddenly return- 
 ing. "It's 'ah' and 'oui, papa'; haven't you any- 
 thing else to say? I might tell you we were going 
 to move into a flat at Charonne, for all you care." 
 
 Henri did not answer. He had nothing to say. 
 Monsieur Duvernoy became angrier and angrier, 
 charging his son with being a poseur, with gaping 
 at the stars instead of realising the serious business 
 of life, with having detestable Socialist theories which 
 would be disastrous if they were not idiotic. Yes, 
 idiotic. 
 
 "And it's not only that," he went on, "for the last 
 fortnight you've been going about with a face as 
 long as a day without bread. There's nothing the 
 matter, is there? Mooning about . . . reading 
 poetry, all that sort of thing. I suppose you're going 
 to be aesthetic, eh? Got des peines de cceur, hein?" 
 
 Henri wheeled about suddenly. 
 
 "I'm going to bed," he said harshly. As he made 
 for the door his mother's voice called him back. 
 
 " Henri ! " she said reproachfully, as if shocked. 
 
 The young man hesitated, then came back, kissed 
 her and, after a second's hesitation, deposited a per- 
 functory kiss upon his father's forehead. 
 
L'AMOUR 97 
 
 III 
 
 Henri, who had much to learn of life, received a 
 lesson the next day. He discovered that it is not easy 
 to obey one's will. His impulse, as soon as he had 
 finished his chocolate and roll, was to rush out and 
 go to the Poste Restante; he even set out early 
 enough to call there, though he was assailed by doubts 
 as he went down the stairs. He wondered whether 
 it were worth while to affront the magnificent bureau- 
 crat; in some moods he saw. himself proudly bearing 
 his letter away, having therefore triumphed over the 
 creature, but in others he was as Jpe day before, 
 expectant, stuttering and cnestfalleA as the expert 
 fingers vainly searched through the letters which other 
 women addressed to other lovers./ He see-sawed 
 awhile in the porch while the conqierge ceased to 
 sweep, rested his weight on his soft proom and con- 
 gratulated him on the splendour of the day. At 
 last he decided not to go, so as to ^ive Suzanne a 
 good chance, started, was drawn to follow a turning 
 which took him past the blue lantern, resisted valiantly 
 and entered the etude Berquin with a sigh which was 
 almost one of relief. It was early ; alone Loupil sat 
 at his desk, drawing over his sleeves his shining 
 alpaca protectors. 
 
 "You are very early, Monsieur Duvernoy," said 
 Loupil, as he peered at him with his bulging eyes. 
 "Good habit, good habit for a young man." 
 
 "I'm afraid it's not a habit. Monsieur Loupil." 
 
 "Well, no, perhaps not. If you lived as far as I 
 do you would always be punctual. Not^that I want 
 to leave my villa," added Loupil, with some pride. 
 
 H 
 
98 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 "Ah, country life, there's nothing like it, Monsieur 
 Duvernoy ! You should see my garden at Asni^res. 
 It is a bower, a real bower in the summer time ; lilac, 
 begonias, petunias, jasmine . . . the bees come miles 
 to use it . . . and vegetables ! You Parisians, you 
 don't know what vegetables are. Isn't that so. 
 Monsieur Sarmin ? " he cried to the new arrival, 
 "you've tasted mine." 
 
 "Yes, quite true, you are a horticulturist born, 
 Monsieur Loupil," said Sarmin, as he sat down at 
 his desk. Sarmin was thirty and looked forty; he 
 was growing bald and there was weariness in his loose 
 mouth. Old Lloupil went on, waving his arms, seiz- 
 ing his skull-cap to instance the size of his tomatoes, 
 while Sarmin winked at Henri and Varnier made 
 behind the old , man's back a discourteous gesture. 
 Little by little as Loupil 's scanty breath failed they 
 imposed their own topics. Sarmin told a lengthy 
 story of how he had picked up a pretty mannequin in 
 the Rue de la Paix. 
 
 "Ah," he ended disconsolately, "that was a woman, 
 mon oher, une fevime epatante.^ I shall never find 
 one like her again ; it's quite as well, though, women 
 like that spoil all the others." 
 
 "Ah, ah," Varnier laughed. 
 
 "Yes, laugh away, young bantam cock," said 
 Sarmin angrily. "You'll see when you're older." 
 
 Henri, for whom old Loupil 's garden had been the 
 ordeal a subordinate must undergo now and then, 
 felt sorry as he saw Sarmin and Varnier face to face. 
 The elder man, with his dry skin and dull eyes, had 
 begun on a note of anger and ended with a bitterness 
 that was full of regret. His words had suggested him 
 
 ' "A stunner," "a peach." 
 
L' AMOUR 99 
 
 as the cheap viveur, who had known nothing but 
 facile and sordid pleasures unworthy of the name of 
 joy ; his princesses had been shop-girls, whose index 
 finger the needle had dented — worse even, those who 
 need no conquering. He had never known, nor had 
 Varnier ever known, this pretty youth whose freshness 
 was being spent on his low amours with a class that 
 was not his own. And they would never know, for 
 they were worse than poor, they could not imagine 
 the heights that love can rise to. Then Henri forgot 
 them, for he realised that heights were fatal : a 
 classical reminiscence made him think of Icarus. 
 Icarus, he repeated to himself, yes, he fell ! But his 
 memories were muddled; he forgot the manner of 
 Phaeton's death and compared himself with an 
 unhappy Icarus driving the steeds of Apollo. 
 
 The feeling of doojn settled on him, ground him 
 down. It swathed him in a grey pall as he sat in 
 his office and listened to the regular scratching of 
 Morel's pen. Morel was a beautiful writer; he was 
 fat and dull-looking ; his broad pale face was set into 
 a discontented frown, and it was a wonder that his 
 short fingers with the dirty nails could accomplish 
 such artistry. For a long time Henri watched him 
 engross; he sat in a twisted heap, his head on one 
 side, his tongue protruding a little ;, he swayed gently 
 with the movement of his pen. He looked up at 
 Henri with a bad-tempered and questioning air. 
 The young man looked away, tried to concentrate on 
 a draft marriage settlement so as to drive out the 
 thought that Suzanne might not write. In these 
 moods he passed the day; it was desperately slow in 
 spite of the lunch interval under his mother's suspici- 
 ous eyes; the afternoon flowed like a sluggish river. 
 
 H 2 
 
loo THE^CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 As time passed his depression increased; even six 
 o'clock. did not cheer him : he mumbled his good- 
 byes, arrived at the Poste Restante in a state of numb 
 despair. 
 
 He looked at the black door as it swayed, dallied 
 with fate, read the notice excluding dogs, the list of 
 penalties applicable to those who spit. Then he 
 sighed, entered, and at once his heart was banging, 
 his blood racing ; he felt hot . . . oh, if she wrote. . . • 
 
 "'H.D.?' I will see. Monsieur." The splendid 
 bureaucrat was at his post, as bored and aloof as 
 ever. He seized a pile of letters from the little grated 
 box, settled himself before them. Henri could have 
 stamped with rage as the man worked his shoulders 
 free in his tight coat and stroked his black waxed 
 moustache. The letters dwindled under his hands; 
 from thirty or so they shrank to ten ; Henri clutched 
 at the smooth oak counter; the words "Poste 
 Restante," standing out white on the blue glass slab, 
 danced before his eyes. 
 
 " Voila, Monsieur." 
 
 A voice had spoken out of the haze. He was out- 
 side, walking quickly with something in his hand. 
 He stopped to look at it : a plain white envelope of 
 a rather cheap kind; on it "H.D." in fine sloping 
 letters. He had it. She had written. She loved 
 him. She must love him. Then a sudden doubt tore 
 him : perhaps the letter forbade him to write again. 
 His wild eyes looked for a shelter where he could 
 read in peace. A little caf^ was before him, just 
 four tables in front of a marchand de vins. He sat 
 down under the awning, and by a prodigy of con- 
 centration ordered a cassis a I'eau de seltz. 
 
 The letter was short. Suzanne addressed him 
 
L'AMOUR loi 
 
 chillingly as "Monsieur" and went on to reproach 
 him gently for his daring. He read that "he would 
 get her into trouble," and his conscience pricked him, 
 that "if he really meant it he must speak to her 
 father," and this was a ray of hope. Then another 
 sentence told him that "he ought not to have done 
 it," and again he saw himself about to be driven away. 
 But she signed "Suzanne," not "Suzanne Bernay," 
 and below was the postscript, the essential postscript 
 of French girls: "Do not trust the concierge. One 
 never knows. But enclose your letters in an enve- 
 lope addressed to Jeanne Breguet, the jemme de 
 chambre." 
 
 Henri's chest expanded ... he wanted to shout. 
 She would let him write again ; she almost asked him 
 to ; she facilitated it. "Oh, Suzanne, ma petite Suzanne, 
 ma bien-aimee," he muttered. There was a quarrel 
 behind him in the caf6 between a coachman and a 
 taxi-driver, cries, the crash of a glass on the zinc 
 counter. He did not hear, for again and again he 
 was reading, absorbing into the intimate substance 
 of his sensibility the last dear words. 
 
 IV 
 
 Henri had recovered something of his equable atti- 
 tude when he reached the Rue de Marignan. He 
 was even on his guard against an outburst of delight, 
 but joy oozed from him, compelled him to stop and 
 speak to the concierge, who sat with his wife and 
 his two daughters outside the porch. The man was 
 reading La Patrie; his wife mended a red petticoat, 
 while the two girls giggled and whispered as. they 
 
I02 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 boldly gazed at the passers-by. The street was 
 warmed still, and there was a pleasant air of business 
 about the seed merchant opposite. The concierge's 
 cat washed itself at its master's feet. 
 
 "Mimi, mimi," said Henri, as he stooped to tickle 
 the creature's neck. 
 
 "Isn't he fine?" said the concierge's wife proudly. 
 "And good, too. He's caught seven mice in four 
 days. What do you think of that, Monsieur Henri ? " 
 
 "I think he must be cheap to feed." 
 
 " Oh, Monsieur Henri!" screamed the three women. 
 "He does it for fun," added the mother. "We feed 
 him on cat's-meat." 
 
 "C'est un marquis, notre chat," said the husband, 
 with a laugh. 
 
 Henri stood up ; he exchanged a friendly look with 
 the bold girls, while the cat rubbed itself against his 
 legs. As he went upstairs he was glad of the western 
 sun that fell slanting on the red and brown carpet, 
 the white walls, and picked out in gold the brass stair- 
 rods. In the hall of the flat, as he let himself in, he 
 found Marie and Charlotte putting the linen away in 
 the black oak cupboard. They smiled at him and he 
 smiled back ; he liked his old Marie, who had followed 
 Madame Duvernoy from Lacour's house twenty-five 
 years before, and Charlotte too, though she had a hot 
 temper and usually answered him backl 
 
 "What a lot of linen ! " he said, with assumed 
 surprise. 
 
 "You'll have as much when you marry, Monsieur 
 Henri," said black-eyed Charlotte. 
 
 "Ah, yes, when I marry," said Henri lightly, but 
 his heart bounded in his chest. "What lovely linen 
 it is ! " 
 
L'AMOUR 103 
 
 "You may well say so, Monsieur Henri," said 
 Marie, witli obvious pride. "Some of it belonged to 
 your grand'mere Lacour. It's fine, fine; they don't 
 make it nowadays." 
 
 "So much the better," said Charlotte, "you can 
 get as good linen for half the price at the Bon 
 Marche." 
 
 "Le Bon Marche! Listen to that. Monsieur Henri. 
 Those Parisians, they don't know what linen is. Do 
 you know, Charlotte, that you can draw one of these 
 tablecloths through a ring the size of a five-franc 
 piece ? " 
 
 "Well, do you want to?" asked Charlotte, with 
 an air of simplicity that infuriated the old servant. 
 Henri began to laugh. 
 
 "You're right, Charlotte. I'm for the new style 
 too." 
 
 "If your grand'mere Lacour heard you," said 
 Marie severely, "she would turn in her grave." 
 
 "Well, she doesn't hear him, does she?" replied 
 Charlotte, bland as ever. 
 
 "I didn't say she did," snarled Marie. 
 
 "Oh, if you've got no religion . . ." 
 
 "Who's got no religion?" Marie asked, with 
 flashing eyes. 
 
 "You." 
 
 " C'est -pas vrai." 
 
 "Si, c'est vrai." 
 
 "Non, c'est pas vrai." 
 
 "^coutez, Monsieur Henri. . . ." 
 
 "Now, now," said Henri, laughing, "don't quarrel, 
 don't quarrel." 
 
 "She said I had no religion," raved old Marie. 
 
 "Well, if you haven't I'm right, and if you have 
 
I04 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 you forgive me, don't you?" said Charlotte, with 
 exasperating amiability. 
 
 As Henri entered the dining-room he could hear old 
 Marie stamping with rage. His mother was sitting by 
 the window reading Le Desastre, for Monsieur Duver- 
 noy, Patriate, Nationaliste and Anti-Semite, always 
 bought Maurice Barr6s, D^roul^de, Jules Lemattre 
 and the Margueritte brothers. As she laid down the 
 book he bent over her and kissed her cheek. Dear 
 little mother, thought Henri; how good and kind 
 she was; so was his father too in his rough way; 
 and old Marie, a second mother, and Charlotte, what 
 a bonne fille. Madame Duvernoy looked up into her 
 son's eyes and smiled, for she was overcome by the 
 glow of their blue. He looked alert, gay. 
 
 "You seem very happy, Henri," she said, smiling 
 still. 
 
 " Oui, maman . . . the weather's so fine . . . every- 
 body's so nice." 
 
 " I like to see you happy," said his mother ; her smile 
 was less definite as vague fears began to assail her. 
 
 Henri kissed her once more, but could not sit down. 
 He felt he had to walk about. His mother watched 
 him narrowly. 
 
 "Anything new at the etude?" 
 
 "No, no, nothing." 
 
 "How is Monsieur Loupil?" 
 
 "Always the same. It's tomatoes, tomatoes all 
 day, except when it's beans." 
 
 " I envy him," said Madame Duvernoy. She meant 
 this, for it was in the Lacour blood to till the soil. 
 
 "Not I," said Henri. "When I marry I'll live in 
 Paris, that's settled." 
 
 " Settled ? What do you mean ? " 
 
L'AMOUR 105 
 
 "Oh, nothing, there's plenty of time for that," said 
 Henri quickly. The sudden coldness of his mother's 
 voice had frightened him. 
 
 "What do you mean?" His mother's voice was 
 now curiously harsh. 
 
 "Oh, I . . . Look here, maman. . . ." Henri 
 hesitated, floundered ; then at last the joy of the day 
 burst its bonds, he must tell somebody. 
 
 "Maman. ... I want to marry Suzanne Bernay. 
 . . . I . . . I'm in love with her and . . . and I 
 can't think of anything else Oh, maman, you can't 
 think how happy it makes me. She's so beautiful, 
 and clever . . . don't you think so, maman?" 
 
 Madame Duvernoy did not reply. Her face had set 
 hard; her small mouth was compressed, her hands 
 were clenched in her lap. 
 
 "Don't you think so?" Henri asked again, but 
 his voice was shaking a little. "I would have. told 
 you before, but until to-day I didn't . . ." He sup- 
 pressed the dangerous avowal of Suzanne's feelings. 
 "I didn't want to, until I was sure. Now I know, 
 she's the only woman I ever wanted to marry, and 
 . . . But why don't you answer, maman?" 
 
 " What do you want me to say ? " replied Madame 
 Duvernoy. Her voice was strained. She was suffer- 
 ing keenly as her son unveiled his passion for the 
 other woman. 
 
 "Say? Say you're glad . . . that you'll . . ." 
 Henri stopped abruptly. He was frightened. His 
 excitable mother sat as if frozen. Why? 
 
 "I can't say that. I am sorry." 
 
 "Sorry?" 
 
 "Yes. I cannot accept Mademoiselle Bernay as a 
 daughter-in-law." 
 
io6 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 Henri tried to speak, but the words refused to 
 come. 
 
 "I have no objection to her personally," Madame 
 Duvernoy went on, as she fixed on him her hard dark 
 eyes, "but there are many reasons against this match. 
 You are both too young, for one thing." 
 
 "Oh, we'll wait," cried Henri in relieved tones. 
 
 "There is nothing to wait for. There are other 
 reasons. I do not like the reputation of Monsieur 
 Bernay. No, Henri, please don't interrupt. You 
 know perfectly well what people say about him ; I 
 have heard him called a swindler. Besides, every- 
 body knows that Suzanne has no dot to speak 
 of." 
 
 "I don't mind that, it's Suzanne I want." 
 
 "Oh yes," said Madame Duvernoy, "young men 
 always say that, but it is a mother's business to look 
 after her son's welfare. You need not marry for 
 years yet, and then you should marry a nice girl with 
 two or three hundred thousand francs dot." 
 
 "But, maman," Henri exclaimed, "don't you see 
 that I love her ? " 
 
 "We are talking of marriage," said Madame 
 Duvernoy icily. " Love's all very well, but one wants 
 something more serious for marriage." 
 
 Henri looked at her blankly, 
 
 "One wants respect, tastes in common, a good 
 social position, enough money. All that will come, 
 and you will find that affection will come with it 
 later on." 
 
 "I don't want it later on," said Henri miserably, 
 "I want it now." 
 
 "Oh, don't be ridiculous." The mother's voice 
 rang impatient. "I'm sure you can enjoy yourself as 
 
L'AMOUR 107 
 
 much as you like. I don't ask where you go in the 
 evening or on Sundays. You really must be serieux, 
 Henri, you are giving me a great deal of pain." 
 
 "Maman . . ." Henri mumbled, "you don't under- 
 stand." 
 
 "Yes I do. And novi^, Henri, please make up your 
 mind that this must stop. Your father and I will 
 never consent. Later on we shall find you a very 
 nice girl and you will be very happy." 
 
 "Maman ... I beg you. . . ." There were tears 
 in the young man's eyes. 
 
 " It is no use begging me. I am surprised at you, 
 you, so raisonnable! Your head is full of idees de 
 jeune homme. You will get over it," she added, with 
 the cruelty of a heart dulled by age. 
 
 "Never, never." Henri shook his head; his voice 
 broke. 
 
 " Voyons, Henri." The mother melted a little as 
 she saw her son crying, tried to take his hand. At 
 once a flicker of hope rose in his soul. He threw 
 himself on his knees by her side. 
 
 "Maman, I beg you . . . you don't know what it 
 means to me. ... I loved her the minute I saw her. 
 ... I can't think of anything else. ... If I don't 
 marry her I shall be ill ... I shall go mad. . . ." 
 
 " Henri, Henri ! " Madame Duvernoy put her hand 
 on his head. He buried his face in her lap, every 
 one of his sobs hurt her horribly. At last he raised 
 his head again, looked into her face. 
 
 "Maman . . ." he pleaded. 
 
 Madame Duvernoy looked away from his wet eyes, 
 slowly shaking her head. 
 
 "Ah . . ." he cried, "I must go out ... I can't 
 stay." 
 
io8 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 Henri rushed from the room, running into his 
 father at the door. 
 
 "What's this? what's this?" said Monsieur 
 Duvernoy irritably. "What's the matter, Marthe?" 
 
 "It's . . . it's . . ." She broke down, buried her 
 face in her hands; he heard her weep. 
 
 "But, enfin, what is it? Sucre now, d'un chien, 
 what is it ? " 
 
 "It's . . ." Madame Duvernoy pulled herself to- 
 gether. "Henri is in love with la petite Bernay. 
 He wants to marry her." 
 
 The little man's mouth tightened. His eyebrows 
 rose ; his face assumed an expression of dismay. 
 
PART II 
 
CHAPTER THE FIRST 
 
 TOUR DE VALSE CHEZ MADAME BERNAY 
 I 
 
 The Rue de Miromesnil is a street about which there 
 is something. It is what you choose to make it or think 
 it; it is dark and shoppy near its centre where the 
 trams thunder past on the Boulevard Haussmann ; near 
 the Faubourg St. Honors its tall houses are cut up 
 into small flats, with which respectable society is not 
 concerned; at that end are the finely official Elys6e 
 and Minist^re de I'lnt^rieur, also large old women 
 who push their barrows laden with vegetables as 
 slowly as the sergent de ville will let them. The other 
 end, however, beyond the Boulevard Haussmann, has 
 another dignity. The flats seem to grow and broaden, 
 threaten to break out even into those small private 
 houses which no Parisian owns unless he be an aristo- 
 crat or a member of the Stock Exchange. There the 
 Rue de Miromesnil is quartier Monceau, a district 
 of style and spaces, where the liveries are' gorgeous, 
 the horses almost good, the dogs conscious of their 
 heredity. Not too far lies the Pare Monceau, the sole 
 fashionable rival of the Tuileries on the right bank 
 of the Seine. It has old trees, water, some statues, 
 and suggests space by its foreshortened lawns, though 
 a motor-car can drive through it in thirty seconds. 
 
112 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 The Bernays had not always lived in this august 
 neighbourhood. When Louis Bernay, twenty years 
 before, married for love and most imprudently, he was 
 content with a three-roomed flat in the Rue Bleue. 
 The Rue Bleue is a street of no importance; the 
 murder of a concierge once shed upon it a transient 
 lustre, but otherwise it is a mere alley of straggling 
 shops. Louis Bernay was in those days glad of his 
 three hundred francs a month at the Union G^n^rale, 
 and was happy enough in the possession of his young 
 wife and of Suzanne, then a few months old. The 
 Rue Bleue was not, however, to hold them very long 
 in semi-slumdom ; when the copper crisis came and 
 the fall of the Union G^n^rale brought down with it 
 old Lacour and the "Fers de France," Louis Bernay 
 was a fairly large "bear" in copper. How this came 
 about even Madame Bernay did not know ; possibly, 
 she liked to think, her Louis had displayed extraordi- 
 nary acumen; possibly, said unkind friends, Louis 
 Bernay had access to private information and used it 
 against his employers' "corner." Whatever may have 
 happened, Louis Bernay certainly scored : the Union 
 G^n^rale closed its doors and he lost his billet, but he 
 repurchased the five hundred tons of copper he had 
 open with a profit of ten points a ton. He had a 
 hundred and twenty-five thousand francs; he was a 
 capitalist. 
 
 Louis Bernay was a man of no mean appetites. He 
 successfully resisted his wife's entreaties that they 
 should invest the treasure in French three per cents, 
 and live agreeably on the resultant hundred and fifty 
 a year in some engardened villa at Montretout. He 
 decided that it would be a pity to waste his youth 
 and Suzanne's chances, announced that he was going 
 
TOUR DE VALSE 113 
 
 on the Bourse, and that, as a preliminary, he was 
 going to move into a better flat in the Faubourg 
 Poissonni^re. Madame Bernay humbly followed him, 
 and, as she was adaptable, soon succeeded in carrying 
 off her increased style. She now had a servant, five 
 rooms instead of three, some Louis X,V furniture, and 
 a subscription to I' Illustration. Monsieur Bernay 
 always liked to see I' Illustration on a Louis X,V chair. 
 "It looks well," he used to say. 
 
 Monsieur Bernay was fairly fortunate at the Bourse ; 
 for several years he averaged a good income as a 
 remisier, began to know Frenchmen with German 
 names, a general or two, consuls of Central American 
 states, one senator and several useful clerks at the 
 Colonial OfiEice — briefly, the people who matter. He 
 sold concessions before having bought them, took 
 vendors' shares for kindly floating companies which 
 occasionally survived, but always lasted long enough 
 to enable him to off-load his holding on optimistic 
 investors ; he received many a twopence-halfpenny for 
 selling or buying shares and free options on slices of 
 the Sahara. Madame Bernay knew many anxious 
 moments, for her husband was often ruined on paper, 
 but he was now and then a millionaire on paper, and 
 after ten years on the financial switchback she began 
 to take life as it came. Meanwhile, Suzanne grew 
 up into a lanky dark girl. She was educated at a 
 neighbouring cours, and, at the age of fourteen, began 
 to promise prettiness. 
 
 Then Monsieur Bernay was so finally ruined on 
 paper that he announced to his tired wife that they 
 were living too cheaply. He realised the remains of 
 his fortune, consisting in shares of companies that had 
 been, and, by means of advertisements in provincial 
 
114 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 papers, founded a flourishing business as a financial 
 adviser. His advice was mainly to buy his shares; 
 it was so sedulously followed that he was soon able 
 to move into the Rue de Miromesnil. For five years 
 Monsieur Bernay had then struggled with life, some- 
 times glad to borrow a hundred francs on the steps 
 of the Bourse, sometimes the terror of an ephemeral 
 South American government. He made and lost vast 
 sums, but all through the six thousand francs rent was 
 paid, the four servants maintained, Suzanne provided 
 with English governesses and German piano teachers. 
 Madame Bernay's dark hair was rather grey, but her 
 frocks cost thirty pounds each. 
 
 Never had Madame Bernay's adaptability been 
 tested so far as in the early days in the Rue de Miro- 
 mesnil. Her banking account at a neighbouring 
 branch of the Soci^t^ G^n^rale rolled and pitched like 
 a ship at sea; the green frontage of the bank was 
 often a haunting presence to be avoided when there 
 were not a hundred francs to her credit, to be affronted 
 when she could draw a cheque for twenty-five 
 thousand. All through Monsieur Bernay insisted on 
 carrying on his household as it was ; he pluckily bore 
 on his own shoulders the sceptical judgment of the 
 green-fronted bank. 
 
 " Reduce our style ! " he said one day in response 
 to Madame Bernay's timid protest. "Ma chere amie, 
 how can you talk like that? I am like an unsteady 
 business; if I reduce my advertisements I am done. 
 We may be ruined by spending too much, but we'll 
 certainly be ruined if we spend too little. I prefer to 
 die fighting." 
 
 Monsieur Bernay was a Napoleon in his own way, 
 and might have been more successful if he had been 
 
TOUR DE VALSE 115 
 
 a Fabius. Madame Bernay, who adored him and 
 thought him the best of men, followed in his train 
 and developed the extraordinary aptitudes which are 
 latent in every Frenchwoman. She reduced economy 
 to the fine point where style disappears and squalor 
 begins ; she even learned — and this was a triumph for 
 the petite bourgeoise she was — to spend judiciously. 
 It was largely her instinctive capacity which governed 
 the selection of their furniture, for she understood her 
 husband's aims. Nothing could have been more sig- 
 nificant than the furniture of their flat. The drawing- 
 room was a vastness of white and gold, with enormous 
 mirrors in gilt frames ; on the parquet floor lay many 
 imitation Persian rugs. The old Louis X,V and 
 Louis X.VI chairs, which had once been her pride in 
 the Faubourg Poissonni^re, had followed her into the 
 new flat ; they were now quite fifteen years old, almost 
 ancestral, but the imitation Aubusson tapestry had 
 worn thin, and Madame Bernay, in utter innocence, 
 had had them re-covered in maroon brocade, which 
 simply shrieked that it represented the year 1830. 
 Mixed with them were aggressive mahogany chairs 
 covered with flowered tapestry, gilt trifles too, stools 
 bought at bazaars. Light maroon taffeta curtains 
 hung round the windows, framing heavy lace blinds. 
 Everywhere the room seemed to burst into ornament : 
 cushions of one colour and of all colours, cushions 
 plain and cushions banded with gold braid, and little 
 footstools with gnarled gilt legs, and tall Chinese 
 pots full of paper flowers, and art pewter pots from 
 Goldscheider, and Rosenburg ware, and Copenhagen 
 ware ; here and there little lamps, with coloured shades 
 laden with paillettes; on the walls a copy of a Har- 
 pignies landscape, some Louis XVI prints on the edge 
 I 2 
 
ii6 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 of the naughty, a few water-colours, no more atrocious 
 than most of their kind, signed "Suzanne Bernay." 
 Electric light everywhere, in the chandelier, in 
 every bracket, and in a horseshoe-shaped glass held 
 by a bronze smith with a raised hammer in his 
 hand. 
 
 The dining-room had been bought as it stood from 
 Waring's, style anglais — that is, fumed oak. It 
 always had the air of a boulevard shop, so obtrusive 
 was the blaze of the brand-new plate. In every avail- 
 able corner were vases, received on past New Year's 
 Days; there was a bookcase full of leather-bound 
 books, the lock of which had been allowed to rust. 
 At the windows heavy blinds laden with dentelle de 
 Milan, bought as bargains at a sale. The hall was 
 a white wilderness, with red damask chairs and a sofa, 
 a large brass bowl full of visiting-cards. The petit 
 salon was a deceptive snuggery, for it seemed small 
 and cosy until you sat on the tiny chairs, all odd and 
 picked up for ten shillings each or so at the dictate of 
 fancy; one could hardly move in the petit salon with- 
 out upsetting a little table laden with souvenirs of 
 every exhibition and of every charity sale of the last 
 decade. Beyond, squeezed and tortured by the four 
 rooms in which Monsieur Bernay advertised, the 
 living space ; a triangular bedroom for Suzanne, with 
 a small window out of which she could not look unless 
 she stood on the table, a larger room for her parents. 
 There were no dressing-rooms ; the dark corridor out- 
 side the living space was in the early morning filled 
 with boots, over which the servants fell as they 
 brought the hot water. 
 
 The life of every day suited the flat admirably. 
 The Bernays had a cook, two maids and a man- 
 
TOUR DE VALSE 117 
 
 servant. The cook was excellent, and grumbled at 
 her forty pounds a year, for she did not make much 
 out of the sou du franc. The manservant, as he 
 polished the parquet floor, made a brave show with 
 his green apron and his black-and-yellow striped 
 waistcoat. But Madame Bernay had developed 
 capacity : her menus were wonderful, for they were 
 permanently keyed up to a high pitch in case pot-luck 
 should disgrace them. Remains of fish reappeared au 
 gratin in cunning shells ; the cold beef of the previous 
 evening became viandes froides, in conjunction with 
 a franc's worth of galantin& truffee from the pork- 
 butcher's, while none would have guessed that the 
 chocolate mousse effect rested on the whites of eggs, 
 the yolks of which had yielded a custard — a creme, as 
 the French more elegantly say. 
 
 What Madame Bernay did for the house she did 
 for her clothes and those of Suzanne. It did not suit 
 Monsieur Bernay that his wife and daughter should 
 not be smart ; it did not suit him either that their pur- 
 chases should be unobtrusive. Thus each had from 
 Doucet or Paquin — and, in later days, Drecoll — one 
 gown a; season, which cost some thirty pounds ; never 
 was one of these bought until it had been tried on 
 on six occasions, so that Madame and Mademoiselle 
 Bernay might be seen by acquaintances, patiently 
 waiting for their turn in the august salons. The gaps 
 were filled in by advantageous purchases of remnants 
 from the Louvre on Wednesdays, or the Galeries 
 Lafayette on Thursdays, while an occasional cheap 
 Liberty fabric became a blouse for Suzanne in the 
 hands of the three-franc needle-woman. Then, too, 
 there were copies of hats and frocks seen at the Skating 
 Rink on unhonoured but pretty people and furs 
 
ii8 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 bought in the summer-time from the cheap furriers 
 of the quartier Cambronne. 
 
 The efificiency of the Bernays was its own reward. 
 They dined on an average four hundred people a year. 
 Now May was to be honoured by a dance. 
 
 II 
 
 "Mademoiselle a eu des nouvelles de Monsieur 
 Henri?" asked Jeanne Br^guet as she slowly combed 
 Suzanne's hair. The girl's voice was deferential and 
 yet softly imperious; the indispensable link between 
 the two young people liked to make her mistress feel 
 at times that she was a shackle too. She was rather 
 tall, thin, yellow-faced and black-eyed; she had the 
 olive skin that runs to saffron at the temples, where 
 the tight oily black hair of the southerner sprouts. 
 Her teeth, as her thin lips parted, showed uneven 
 and carious. 
 
 "Why, you know I have, Jeanne," said Suzanne; 
 "you gave me the letter." She spoke impatiently 
 the first half of the sentence, and ingratiatingly the 
 second, as if she were a horse rearing against the bit 
 and then subsiding into helplessness. 
 
 "Oui, oui," said the maid; "he is always devoted 
 to Mademoiselle, I suppose." 
 
 Suzanne began to laugh. "You want to read the 
 letter, Jeanne. It's a shame. Haven't you got an 
 amoureux yourself ? " 
 
 Jeanne looked at her mistress with a sulky air as 
 she detailed her superior charms. She could not help 
 admiring the long neck, the soft swell of the breast 
 under the dressing-jacket, the mother-of-pearl sheen 
 
TOUR DE VALSE 119 
 
 under the collar-bones. She reflected savagely on the 
 whiteness of the skin, which was not like her sallow 
 complexion, on the velvety eyes, the long lashes, the 
 thick black hair. And she wondered why that 
 terrible God she worshipped — ^Jehovah the tyrant, who 
 threatens with boiling oil and lead the lives of Pro- 
 ven9al peasants — had given Suzanne everything and 
 her nothing. Mixed with her spasm of hatred was, 
 however, a gentleness such as to make her want to 
 press her lips on the dark hair. 
 
 "Non, mademoiselle," she said at last, with a sigh, 
 "and I don't want one. When I go back to Fr^jus, 
 in a year or two, I'll have enough to marry on." 
 
 "But why marry if you haven't got an amoureux? " 
 asked Suzanne. 
 
 "You don't want a man to marry you because you'll 
 have two thousand francs." Jeanne Br^guet spoke 
 almost viciously, and Suzanne cried out as she dug 
 the comb into her head. 
 
 "That's how it is, Mademoiselle. Men are like 
 that : money's what they want ; I expect we'll start 
 a caf^, and it won't be so bad after all. L'amour, 
 that's all very well, but life is an affaire serieuse." 
 
 Suzanne looked doubtfully at her own face in the 
 looking-glass as Jeanne's hands quickly drew up her 
 hair, crossed the strands and edified on the top of her 
 head, with artifice and the secret aid of a pad, the coil 
 which was in that day's fashion. Yes, life was an 
 affaire serieuse, but still . . . 
 
 "One can marry a man one loves, Jeanne; it seems 
 to me one oughtn't to marry unless one does. Why, 
 the idea of marrying anybody because I was just told 
 to makes me feel ill." 
 
 "You wouldn't have said that a month ago. Made- 
 
I20 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 moiselle," said Jeanne as her lips parted and revealed 
 her ugly teeth. 
 
 "No — I suppose I wouldn't. You see, a month ago 
 I was merely a little girl in a hurry to get out into the 
 fine big world; I thought that marriage was clothes, 
 lots of clothes, and a flat of my own, and perhaps 
 a carriage, and . . . freedom to go anywhere : La 
 Cigale and the Palais-Royal and — oh, everything." 
 
 "But now . . . Mademoiselle is in love." 
 
 "Yes, I suppose I am." The laughing lips relaxed 
 into seriousness, and, baby-like, Suzanne Bernay 
 looked into the mirror and wondered whether she 
 was beautiful enough to make Henri want her so 
 badly that he would overcome his mother's oppo- 
 sition. 
 
 "You know," she said, "his letter to-day was very 
 miserable. Madame Duvernoy won't listen to him, 
 merely says "No" when he mentions me; she says 
 • it's all because I have no money — not much, that is. 
 And they're horrid to him — horrid. They watch him, 
 he says, if he does nothing . . . and his mother's 
 always either embracing him or quarrelling with him 
 . . . and his father is always saying nasty things. 
 I hate his father. Oh, Jeanne, it's awful, awful, all 
 that because I'm poor. Do you think they'll ever 
 consent ? " 
 
 "You never know," said Jeanne as she planted the 
 last comb. "Oh, don't shake your head like that, 
 your hair'U come Ipose." 
 
 "But what shall we do if they don't?" asked 
 Suzanne. 
 
 "I don't know. You must wait patiently. Made- 
 moiselle." 
 
 "Wait, wait! I'm sick of waiting." Suzanne 
 
TOUR DE VALSE 121 
 
 stamped with anger, deliciously pretty in her short 
 lace petticoat and white stays. Her face con- 
 tracted. 
 
 "Now, Mademoiselle, don't cry," said Jeanne in a 
 kindlier tone than she had used before. "Your eyes 
 will be red, and what will he say to-night ? " 
 
 "To-night?" Susanne smiled again. 
 
 "Yes, to-night," said Jeanne, as if talking to a 
 child. "There, let me fasten your dress." 
 
 Suzanne obediently stood while the white muslin 
 frock of the jeune fille was drawn over her head. 
 Then her white-stockinged feet were shod in small 
 white kid shoes, with paste buckles. 
 
 "I wonder whether he'll be glad to see me," she 
 mused; "I didn't write very nicely yesterday." 
 
 "What did you say?" 
 
 "He's always asking me to say I love him. I said 
 I did -not dislike him. That ought to be enough. 
 But still . . ." 
 
 "But still you'd have gladly said more,'' Jeanne 
 remarked rather sneeringly. "Then why don't you? 
 When I was your age. Mademoiselle, I didn't hesitate 
 like that." 
 
 "Perhaps you're right," said Suzanne; "perhaps I 
 will. I do love him. And yet it's so difficult, you 
 see; without money one can't . . ." 
 
 "Well, I'm going, Madenioiselle," said the maid, 
 with a half-snarl. She was madly irritated by this 
 bourgeois exhibition, this regard for money as the 
 base of a society she hated while she battened on it, 
 this harping on the means which are needed to pre- 
 serve class distinction, to maintain that preposterous 
 system of masters and servants, idleness, uselessness. 
 True, she too was saving a dot to buy a man and a 
 
122 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 caf^ at Fr^jus, but then she was not beautiful like this 
 adorable warped child. 
 
 Left alone Suzanne turned over in her mind the 
 recent and momentous happenings : the dinner where 
 he looked so big and so elegant in his frock-coat; the 
 tennis party where he seemed bigger still, and such 
 a man. She was thrilled as she remembered the 
 reddish down on his forearms, the touch of his hot 
 cheek against hers. And then the letters, the first of 
 them so blunt and delicious, for it frightened and 
 conquered her ; the others, long, ardent, full of hope- 
 fulness and despair — letters that broke into the loveliest 
 verse — 
 
 " A la trfes chere, k la trfes belle 
 Qui remplit mon coeur de clart^, 
 A I'ange, k I'idole immortelle, 
 Salut en immortalitd ! '' 
 
 How clever he must be, she thought, to write such 
 beautiful poetry for her. She had never read a line 
 of Baudelaire. 
 
 He was coming to-night. And not only was he 
 coming, but he was going to dance with her; she 
 would hold his hand, feel his arm round her waist, 
 be held very close to hira. How blue his eyes were, 
 how fresh his skin, and how different all about him 
 from the little fops and the shady oldsters who flattered 
 her and whispered half-understood things. 
 
 She sat down in th^ arm-chair, surveying with de- 
 tachment the little details of her tiny triangular room : 
 the pitch-pine dressing-chest, its few scent bottles, the 
 small white bed piled with linen and garments, the 
 open varnished wardrobe where she could see her 
 best hat reflected in the mirror. She did not move, 
 so intense and physical was her day-dream. Intrusive 
 
TOUR DE VALSE 123 
 
 thoughts — ^the opposition of Madame Duvernoy, the 
 chances of success, the unisnown facts which main- 
 tained friendly relations, the possibility of her mother 
 knowing what was going on — floated through her 
 mind. A voice at her elbow made her start up. 
 
 "Are you ready, Suzanne?" asked her mother 
 gently. 
 
 Suzanne looked at her pretty mother, her soft grey 
 hair, her lo^s^cut mauve frock. How sweet she was, 
 and yet she could be of no use to her ; could not even 
 be safely entrusted with the secret. 
 
 "Out, maman," said Suzanne, with a guilty smile, 
 and quickly she kissed her mother's cheek. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The large drawing-room, which sucked the life- 
 blood from the Bernays' flat, blazed from every one 
 of its electric bulbs ; all the little lamps glowed through 
 their paillettes, and, from plug to plug, long cords 
 carried yet more improvised brilliance. Every minute 
 the valet de chambre, clad for the circumstance in 
 evening dress, thundered forth the sonorous names, 
 while two hired satellites in red liveries mutely directed 
 the guests to their respective dressing-rooms. Already 
 groups had formed in the drawing-room, and Madame 
 Bernay, followed by Suzanne, went from the one to the 
 other, exclaiming, exchanging small talk, while her 
 husband engaged in conversation with several elderly 
 men. 
 
 "Monsieur et Madame Samaro, Mesdemoiselles 
 Samaro," shouted the valet de chambre. 
 
 Madame Bernay hurried forward. The consul was 
 
124 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 a mass of orders, which tinkled as he walked; his 
 shirt-front was barred by a broad red-and-blue ribbon. 
 By his side Madame Samaro and her daughters, 
 Dolores and Mercedes, all three magnificent, the 
 mother in orange, the daughters in red, all three 
 bursting into splendid massiveness of olive flesh from 
 their tight low-cut bodices. 
 
 "Ah, Madame, enchantee " 
 
 "So amiable of you — we were afraid we were late." 
 
 "You were late, for me," said Monsieur Bernay 
 gallantly. 
 
 There were little cries, laughter, then the renewed 
 shouts of the valet de chambre. 
 
 "Madame et Mademoiselle de Torraltal" 
 
 Two tall thin Spanish women with hatchet faces 
 and straight backs. The mother painted and beauti- 
 ful, the daughter grave with the austerity of a 
 Madonna. Barheim, the smart youth, who was clean 
 shaven and wore an eyeglass {style anglais), hurried 
 forward to meet them. 
 
 "Madame et Mademoiselle de Morenda! Monsieuf 
 Jacques Sorell " 
 
 Suzanne detached herself from the Samaros to 
 speak to her big friend. Letitia looked splendid ; her 
 rebellious soul defied even suitability : instead of 
 following the line of least resistance and wearing a 
 fierce colour to set off her black hair she had elected 
 to wear a pale green, and this her splendid flesh lines 
 and towering head managed to dominate. 
 
 "Bonsoir, Madame," said Suzanne to the retreat- 
 ing form of Madame de Morenda. The old lady 
 nodded, smiled, sidled away. She had brought her 
 strong daughter to the ball and had nothing to do 
 now but wait for four hours in a corner. "Tu es 
 
TOUR DE VALSE 125 
 
 belle, Letitia," she whispered. "You look like an 
 Amazon about to fight." 
 
 "Well, so I am," said Letitia good^humouredly, 
 "le striigl forr liff" you know. Tiens, the battle 
 begins, there's Javal; he shall dance with me. Eh! 
 eh lor-has" she exclaimed in a daringly loud voice, 
 "Monsieur Javal." 
 
 Javal turned round suddenly, and, nothing loth, 
 came up to the two girls. His pale face and dark 
 parted hair produced an impression of weakness 
 which rather endeared him to the burly Letitia. He 
 was less like a barber than usual; his ready-made 
 white tie and waxed moustache made him look more 
 like a waiter. While Letitia was telling him what 
 dances she required of him, Suzanne was taken away 
 by her mother and introduced to the Due de Mon- 
 terrico, a very old man, who, for unascertained 
 reasons, never visited his castle on the Arno and sat 
 on the boards of companies. The valet de chambre 
 was still announcing the guests — 
 
 "Madame et Mesdemoiselles Scholtein! Monsieur 
 Andre Maroux! Monsieur Goldenthal! " 
 
 The room became fuller and fuller ; it was necessary 
 almost to shout to be heard. Everywhere little groups 
 of Jewesses, short and stout, dark, hairy-necked; 
 with them their men, all fat and thick-skinned, with 
 pendulous mouths, protruding dark eyes, spatulate 
 fingers ; rastaquoueres too, among the Frenchmen, who 
 seemed small and thin by the side of the dark men 
 and women with the yellow hides and the oily smooth 
 hair of the American Indian ; all the rastaquoueres 
 were there, the concession hunters, the promoters, 
 the planters from Honduras, Brazil and Venezuela, 
 the political exiles from Colombia and Ecuador, and 
 
126 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 their wives and daughters, fine, insolent and be- 
 jewelled like their less fortunate fellows in the dens 
 of Buenos Ayres. Nothing could have been more 
 truly Parisian. 
 
 Suzanne and her mother talked hurriedly to all as 
 they came in, but the minutes passed and Suzanne's 
 heart beat faster as she wondered whether, at the last 
 minute, the Duvernoys would refuse to come. The 
 idea made her almost hysterical ; she had to pull her- 
 self together time after time to respond to the heavy 
 gallantries of Carlheim, to find small talk for the 
 de Torraltas, to reply with commonplaces to the 
 hardly delicate pleasantries of Barheim and Jacques 
 Sorel. Still time passed; the senateur Luizot arrived, 
 creating a little stir among the rastaquoueres, for his 
 title was real ; then Dupont, the Independent Socialist 
 depute, who might one day be minister of finance. 
 Still, no Henri. Suzanne felt she would cry if he did 
 not come. For some minutes nobody seemed to want 
 her ; the South Americans were clustering round the 
 senateur and the depute; their fierce contest with the 
 Jews had completely thrust out the Frenchmen, who 
 formed little groups of their own round Letitia and 
 the Scholtein girls. The old Due de Monlerrico sat 
 by the mantelpiece, his mouth open and his head 
 nodding as if he were about to go to sleep. Then the 
 trump of the resurrection sounded and Suzanne's 
 dead heart rose — 
 
 "Monsieur et Madame Duvernoy ! Monsieur 
 Henri Duvernoy!" shouted the mechanical voice of 
 the valet de chambre. 
 
 The band and piano in the petit salon struck up 
 Amoureuse as the Duvernoys came in. Madame 
 Duvernoy walked with an air of aggressive weari- 
 
TOUR DE VALSE 127 
 
 ness, as if she were entering an enemy's country; 
 there was about her something of the dignity of a 
 Roman matron going to her doom for her husband's 
 benefit, for she was at the Bernays' to keep the 
 Damascus railway case alive. Her husband followed 
 behind, a little shamefaced and hiding his embarrass- 
 ment under the unusually fierce cock of his grey 
 moustache. Behind came Henri, looking very big- 
 chested, thanks to his white shirt-front;, in his 
 blue eyes was a rapt look which turned into a sudden 
 glow as they met those of Suzanne. The girl passed 
 him very close, smiling as she slowly turned in the 
 arms of Andr6 Maroux ; the bearded youth was smil- 
 ing too, and Henri felt a spasm of pain as he noticed 
 that Maroux was holding, not Suzanne's hand, but 
 her forearm. He stifled his jealousy, telling himself 
 that this was the way smart people danced le 
 boston, but he resented Suzanne's apparent calm, 
 for he did not know that a woman can smile and dis- 
 cuss Sarah Bernhardt when her heart is breaking or 
 her body racked with fever. He was talking vaguely 
 to Madame Bernay now without knowing what he 
 was saying, while his mother's shrill voice hurt his 
 ear-drums; couples passed him by, swinging to the 
 rhythm ; Javal, nominally guiding Letitia de 
 Morenda, in reality following her lead; Dolorte 
 Samaro in the arms of Dupont the depute, who had 
 audaciously placed his gloved hand so high above her 
 waist that his finger-tips touched the firm olive back, 
 and Suzanne with that hateful dirty-bearded Maroux. 
 They flashed past him as he dreamt and stupidly 
 smiled; Carlheim, fat and oily, dancing with a lanky 
 dark girl ; and Mercedes Samaro, into whose black 
 eyes Jacques Sorel, a yellow-haired, vicious-looking, 
 
128 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 long-nosed youth, was gazing. And Suzanne again ; 
 how pale her face was, how red her lips. . . • Ah, she 
 did not seem to look at Maroux now, her eyes were 
 downcast, except at those moments when she passed 
 Henri. 
 
 "Oui, oui, Madame," he murmured, "it's very 
 warm for May." Then he found himself gazing with 
 stupid intensity at the Due de Monterrico; the old 
 man was sitting near the mantelpiece, nodding 
 regularly with a senile smile on his face. At last 
 Henri heard the last strains of the waltz, the finale. 
 He detached himself from his parents, plunged into 
 the throng of men who were returning the girls to the 
 care of their chaperons. He elbowed Sorel's frilled 
 shirt-front, which was almost lace, with savage satis- 
 faction, forced himself past the bowing Maroux. He 
 was speaking to Suzanne now; he saw her blush 
 faintly, heard his own strained voice as he asked for 
 a dance. Madame Bernay, who stood near by, 
 delicate and pretty in her mauve dress, nodded 
 approval. 
 
 "Si vous voulez, Monsieur," said Suzanne in a low 
 voice. He remained standing by her side, talking 
 quickly, hardly knowing what he was saying. He 
 caught Letitia's eye; the virago smiled and he auto- 
 matically responded. Jacques Sorel and Barheim 
 intruded ; it was awful, sacrilegious : he hated them 
 both, Sorel and his yellow hair, his long nose, his 
 pimples and his large smiling mouth ; and Barheim,, 
 his pale face with the smart-pointed chin and slaty 
 eyes. He hated all about them : Sorel's frills, his 
 fluttering tie; Barheim's eyeglass and white carna- 
 tion button-hole. Dirty Jew, thought Henri, with 
 his white carnations I That's the sort the Ligue des 
 
TOUR DE VALSE 129 
 
 Patriotes and the Royalists and the Clericals pick up 
 with. The young men smirked and struck attitudes. 
 Barheim threw out his fat chest, while Sorel's 
 enigmatic unvirile back undulated as his water- 
 coloured eyes roved over every face. 
 
 "Ah, Mademoiselle," said Barheim with unction, 
 "I see you like dancing. I could see you swaying 
 while you danced with Maroux." 
 
 "Yes," said Suzanne, "I do like rhythm, don't 
 you, Monsieur Sorel ? " 
 
 "Yes," said Sorel in fluty tones, "rhythm is life. 
 To attune yourself to rhythm is to be happy. Hein, 
 Duvernoy ? " 
 
 "Out, oui," growled Henri, who did not under- 
 stand. 
 
 "Oh, leave life alone," said Barheim, "we were 
 talking of waltzes. Why do you have Amoureuse, 
 though. Mademoiselle ? You hear it everywhere, and 
 like all familiar things it is an outrage." 
 
 "True," said Sorel, "nothing is so outrageous as 
 a familiar thing. And nothing is so familiar as an 
 outrageous thing. That, you know, is the experience 
 of life, for life itself is an experience. Hein, Duver- 
 noy?" he said maliciously. Henri did not reply, but 
 Suzanne began to laugh. 
 
 "Ah, Monsieur Sorel," she said, "your paradoxes 
 are too clever for us." She threw a glance at Henri 
 which caused his spirits to rise again. 
 
 "Oh yes, very clever," sniffed Barheim. "Person- 
 ally I think nothing is so idiotic as wit. There, Sorel, 
 you can serve that up as your own." 
 
 While Suzanne laughed again she reflected that 
 Sorel was talking nonsense, but that Henri was say- 
 ing nothing. She wondered whether she liked him 
 
I30 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 for it, whether she would prefer him to be witty hke 
 these young fools. There was a slight convulsion as 
 la petite Stein arrived with her mother, followed by 
 her fiance, the Comte de Vieilleroche. The girl, 
 young and rather pertly pretty, came in with a fine 
 air of rosy assurance, with the languid aristocrat who 
 looked almost too tired to smile. He followed in her 
 train, with the great air of a man who has seen 
 everything and done everything and can conceive of 
 nothing more to try. The Jews and rastaquoueres 
 parted before the triumphal Stein procession ; they 
 almost applauded the commoner's daughter and the 
 captive who trudged behind her chariot. Then the 
 second waltz began; the mellifluous sounds of 
 Dernieres Etreintes filled the room. 
 
 "My dance, I think," said Henri hoarsely. 
 
 'Suzanne nodded, stood up. A second of awkward- 
 ness made Henri pause ; he was going to touch her. 
 Then he seized her right hand and roughly placed 
 his arm round her waist. They started. He could 
 not see her eyes, for the lashes were downcast. They 
 twice went round the room before he could dominate 
 the violence of his emotions ; he was near her, holding 
 her hand, feeling as he touched her waist the extra- 
 ordinary intimacy of the experience. All this tied his 
 tongue. At last he faltered — 
 
 "Suzanne." 
 
 She did not raise her eyes, but he saw her lips 
 tremble. 
 
 "Suzanne ... I love you." He whispered almost 
 into her ear, through her. dark hair. Couples passed 
 them, collided with them slightly; the chaperons' 
 skirts brushed Henri's legs as he went by. Henri 
 wondered whether he could resist the longing to 
 
TOUR DE VALSE 131 
 
 crush his lips into the soft white neck. He could 
 feel her hand tremble in his. At last she raised 
 her lashes and the look of her dark eyes told him all, 
 for they were those of a joyful child which sees a 
 delicious gift and can hardly believe it to be its own. 
 She said a few words, but he could not hear. 
 
 " Do you love me ? " he asked bluntly. 
 
 Again the lashes concealed the eyes, and not even 
 the heavy pressure of the young man's arm could 
 wrench avowal from the girl. With growing despair 
 Henri heard the music become louder as a prelude to 
 the final bars. 
 
 "You will give me the next but two?" he almost 
 commanded. Suzanne acquiesced without hesitation. 
 The waltz ended, and Henri found himself surrender- 
 ing Suzanne to her mother. His left hand still full 
 of the sensation of hers, he walked to the door just 
 in time to witness the arrival of a great man. 
 
 "Monsieur Adrien Pervenche!" cried the valet de 
 chambre. 
 
 There was a pause, a semi-silence, coincidental, no 
 doubt, and significant only of the reaction from the 
 excitement of the dance; still, it was a pause, akin 
 'tojhe sudden stop of the orchestra when the gymnast 
 is about to perform his greatest feat. It lasted quite 
 ten seconds, during which the conversation fell and 
 fell, while the people waited. Then Adrien Per- 
 venche seemed for an appreciable moment to float in 
 the doorway like some celestial body materialising 
 for .the sake of men. 
 
 He stood, the valet de chambre a little behind him, 
 the satellites, like red cariatides, to his right and left. 
 He appeared as an immensely tall and thin youth in 
 whom everything — the shape of his head, his neck, 
 
 K 2 
 
132 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 his narrow shoulders and hips, even his pointed, 
 varnished shoes — accentuated the impression of length. 
 His evening-dress moulded his slender waist; his 
 shirt was delicately tucked — tucked, said rumour, into 
 seventy-two tucks by a Moscow washerwoman whose 
 sole other customer was the Czar ; the shirt undulated 
 into a waistcoat, which in some lights was grey as 
 an English dawn, in others fiery with an opal's soul ; 
 above sat a black silk tie, flowered with black satin 
 butterflies and looking itself like a butterfly fed on 
 the pollen of Stygian blooms. As you looked at 
 Adrien Pervenche you saw other details too, a black 
 silk fobchain carrying a graven amethyst, flat links 
 of silver and purple enamel, socks flecked as a 
 mackerel sky. You saw too a face of extreme aloof- 
 ness, with fine eyes and a sad mouth ; the cheeks had 
 by some curious chameleon-like instinct assumed the 
 mauve hue of that night's composition. 
 
 Adrien Pervenche raised to his left eye, with a hand 
 of which every finger-nail was as coral, an eyeglass 
 mounted in ivory. For the space of a second the fine 
 discriminating glance travelled over the assembly, 
 examined Sorel's shirt, the glistening faces of the 
 Jews, the olive flesh of the Samaro women. Then 
 Adrien Pervenche stepped forward, thus relieving the 
 tension, bent low over Madame Bernay's hand, again 
 discriminated among those present, and by a swift 
 insidious movement entered the throng, acknowledg- 
 ing in a manner that ignored the salutations which 
 fell on him as do petitions in the carriage of a 
 king. The salon saw that Adrien Pervenche had sat 
 down by the side of his peer, the Comte de Vieille- 
 roche. The silence broke. As if a reaction of glee 
 had infected it the band seemed to realise that the 
 
TOUR DE VALSE 133 
 
 Prince of the Dandies had ascended his throne ; with 
 mad joy it thundered out an alleluian mazurka. 
 
 Henri danced the fifth, then the eighth, dance with 
 Suzanne. He hardly kept count of the others, pas- 
 sages of no importance in arms which did not lack 
 beauty but did lack magic. He felt himself tossed in 
 this feminine crowd, making as best he could amus- 
 ing conversation ; Dolores Samaro curved felinely 
 towards him, caressing him with her soft black eyes ; 
 Letitia, dominating and splendid in her desperate 
 defiance of French laws, bore him forward with an 
 impetuous rush which often proved devastating to 
 weaker teams; he seemed thrown from woman to 
 woman — from Th^r^se Scholtein, who never said any- 
 thing, to Sorel's sister, who was so like him that it 
 had become A recognised joke to mistake her for her 
 yellow-haired brother; to Seriorita de Torralta, to 
 dance with whom was to hold a furious Arab steed. 
 He danced in the desert, danced, danced, feeling his 
 collar grow limp, his hair matted, a film of heat and 
 sweat pass over his eyes. And then came Suzanne 
 again, the joyful enigma, with her cool crisp lips and 
 little trembling hands. 
 
 Along the sides of the room the chaperons watched 
 and analysed. 
 
 "Bad style, cette Mademoiselle de Morenda," said 
 Madame Duvernoy to her neighbour, the fat Madame 
 Goldenthal. 
 
 "Yes," said the lady, with a sigh; "ah, these 
 jeunes filles modernes! They respect nothing, go out 
 unattended, believe in no God, and want to marry for 
 love. That's the result of I'education anglaise, 
 atheism and les sports." 
 
 "Look how she is clutching le petit Javal," said 
 
134 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 Madame Duvernoy, who cared nothing for social 
 theories. 
 
 "She clutches whom she can," Madame Goldenthal 
 concurred; "but she won't hold him. Not a sou." 
 
 "Oh no . . . of course . . . no . . ." Madame 
 Duvernoy was disturbed, for the idea had its applica- 
 tion, especially as she could see Henri waltzing with 
 Suzanne. The girl was held close in his arms, her 
 breast touching his shirt-front. "Fool," thought 
 Madame Duvernoy, " I was a fool to come." But her 
 roving eyes met those of her husband, who was talk- 
 ing in the doorway to Monsieur Bernay. The rail- 
 way, no doubt. . . . She sighed. Then her soul 
 thirsted for revenge, and she turned to Madame 
 Goldenthal — 
 
 "Cette Morenda est une . . ." she said. Her 
 cheeks flushed a little, for as she turned she saw 
 seated behind her a little washed-out woman in a 
 dress that had once been a wedding-gown. It was 
 Madame de Morenda, and she had heard 1 But 
 nothing happened, for Madame de Morenda was in 
 training; her lips twitched and Madame Duvernoy 
 lifted her head with an aggressive air. 
 
 The party grew merrier, noisier. Adrien Per- 
 venche and the Comte de Vieilleroche still sat side 
 by side without speaking, enjoying the mute sym- 
 pathy which unites the best-dressed man in Paris 
 and the man with the oldest name. Round them 
 the dancers eddied : Barheim with his pointed chin 
 almost on the rosy shoulder of la petite Stein; 
 Jacques Sorel dancing with his sister, as if courting 
 the family pleasantry ; and the Torralta girl, wild-eyed 
 now and stamping like a mustang ; Letitia very untidy 
 and red, dancing as if she had sworn to tear out of 
 life such joy as time would let her. At times a couple 
 
TOUR DE VALSE 135 
 
 broke away; Dolores and Mercedes were conducted 
 to the buffet by the senateur and the depute, under 
 the vigilant guardianship of their mother. Madame 
 Samaro did not interfere much in what was said, for 
 she found it desirable not to understand French very 
 well. Still, she was there. 
 
 At last, as the evening passed, Henri, who was 
 suffering because he did not know, gathered together 
 enough force to break down Suzanne's reserve. They 
 danced slowly, conscious of being afloat together and 
 alone. Before their eyes passed the faces at the side, 
 the old Due de Monterrico still nodding and senile, 
 Madame Bernay faded and sweet, Madame Duvernoy 
 erect and torn between two passions, Adrien Per- 
 venche and the Comte de Vieilleroche witnessing 
 Olympian the frolics of the mortals. Henri leant over 
 Suzanne, clenching his teeth together in his intensity. 
 
 " Do you love me ? " he asked. 
 
 Suzanne raised her head. He saw a mist in her 
 eyes. 
 
 "Answer," he said roughly. 
 
 Very slowly Suzanne nodded. But Henri loved 
 her too much not to torture her; he was a lover, thus 
 a potential murderer. The quality of his passion was 
 selfish because it was real. 
 
 "Say it," he commanded. 
 
 Then the room swam and the lights grew dim ; the 
 faces were all blurred together into a whiteness and 
 the music receded far away behind his brain into a 
 muffled chamber where it expired. For Suzanne had 
 whispered — 
 
 "Je t'aime." 
 
 Henri saw the world again as if he had been in a 
 dark room and a hand had torn open the door, 
 revealing the southern light on a white road. 
 
CHAPTER THE SECOND 
 
 FACE A FACE 
 I 
 
 Never before had a subject been so carefully 
 avoided in the Duvernoy family as the affaire 
 Bernay. The life of every day seemed gently to 
 ebb away, hardly ruffled and on the whole amiable; 
 but its amiability was that of duellists who gravely 
 bow before crossing swords. All were punctilious as 
 those enemies, anxious to be polite so that nobody 
 could have a grievance, watchful for fear that at any 
 moment dignity would demand that friendliness should 
 be transformed into hostility. The relations between 
 the three members of the Duvernoy family were 
 uncomplicated by the intrusion of uncles or aunts; 
 there were some such people, but most of them had 
 quarrelled with their Paris relatives. Mademoiselle 
 Ravier (Monsieur Duvernoy's aunt) and the Lacour 
 cousins, being pensioners, could not be admitted to 
 take part in family differences. Thrown back upon 
 one another to consider a naturally distasteful subject, 
 the Duvernoys tended to exasperate one another by 
 throwing out hints without daring to discuss it. At 
 the bottom both parties thought that the other side 
 would yield. Henri, nerved by the splendid con- 
 sciousness of being loved, often found it difficult to 
 repress his optimism; he felt assured that his mother 
 
 136 
 
FACE A FACE 137 
 
 and father would at length recognise the genuineness 
 of his passion and give way. He even imagined their 
 surrender as graceful and generous; he figured his 
 father shaking hands with Monsieur Bernay and kiss- 
 ing Madame Bernay and Suzanne, his mother telling 
 Suzanne that now she knew her better she was 
 delighted to have her as a daughter-in-law. Mean- 
 while Madame Duvernoy tried to persuade herself 
 that Henri's calf-love would pass away, that he would 
 give up the struggle in despair, or, better still, give 
 it up for her sake; she hoped that in his susceptible 
 frame of mind some woman would detach him, pre- 
 ferably some safe married woman, after which she, 
 the mother, would reign supreme. As for Monsieur 
 Duvernoy, he found it very difficult to believe that 
 Henri was really in love, for he had never himself 
 known the feeling ; he hoped that Henri would let the 
 matter drop, at least until the Damascus railway case 
 was properly in his hands. 
 
 Beyond a doubt the Damascus business was doing 
 very well. The trouble with the Porte having become 
 acute he had already been retained, and had made 
 some impression in the minor court. Still, the affair 
 was simple enough, and Monsieur Duvernoy felt it 
 necessary to be careful until he had attained at least 
 the Court of Appeal. Once in the Court of Appeal 
 all would be well, for the case would have become so 
 complicated that Bernay would, under no circum- 
 stances, dare to take it away from him. He often 
 urged this aspect upon his wife, who heard him with 
 a mixture of sulkiness and greed. 
 
 "You see," he remarked one day, "I have already 
 drawn two thousand francs. Not a fortune for 
 Croesus, I agree, but when we're in the Court of 
 
138 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 Appeal, where, I hope, we shall stay a year, it'll 
 produce a regular income; after that the Supreme 
 Court, who never hurries, and Heaven knows what 
 complications with the Government. I hope to do 
 so well that . . . even if we had to risk . . . even if 
 Henri . . ." 
 
 "No," said Madame Duvernoy fiercely. "If I 
 thought that, Jules, you should throw up the brief." 
 " Do not be absurd." 
 
 " I may be absurd, but I won't have my son sold." 
 "I won't sell your son. Perhaps they don't want 
 him." 
 
 Madame Duvernoy considered the insult for some 
 seconds ; then, with splendid lack of logic, she ignored 
 the fact that she would sell Henri to any girl who bid 
 three hundred thousand francs, and snarled — 
 
 "They are after him. That's why you've got the 
 case." 
 
 "Ridiculous," said Monsieur Duvernoy, shrugging 
 his thin shoulders. "Bernay practically offered me 
 the case before he had seen Henri." 
 
 "He may have heard. Those people have their 
 police." 
 
 "Marthe, you make me impatient. When Henri 
 is in question you are mad, possessed." 
 
 Monsieur Duvernoy was quite right : his wife was 
 possessed. She surprised herself in the middle of 
 her orders, stopping to look open-mouthed at the 
 cook, and wondering whether some ghastly business 
 was going on behind her back, a business organised 
 by the Bernay family, a business springing from 
 some despicable ten-year-old plot. More than ever 
 now she watched Henri, and every one of his moods 
 was a torture : if he was happy she wondered whether 
 
FACE A FACE 139 
 
 he had seen the girl and was rejoicing in her; if he 
 moped she pitied him with a dreadful concentrated 
 pity, for she could not comfort him, hated him 
 because she could not do so, hated herself because 
 for the first time she had to fail him. She found it 
 impossible to discuss the subject with her husband, 
 for his attitude remained : " I beg you to leave the 
 thing alone and let me go on with my case." Henri 
 she dared not attack, for fear that he should tell her too 
 much. Thus her secret burdened her more than an 
 ordinary secret. If it had been a thing she alone 
 knew, she could have borne it and even gloried in 
 the possession, but she shared it with two persons, 
 without being able to discuss it or see it develop; 
 instead of proving a link, it therefore became a bar. 
 Sometimes the pain became so intolerable that she 
 thought she must talk to old Marie and ask her 
 to support her view, but she feared that the old 
 servant's heart would turn to the boy and increase 
 enmity in the house. Besides, Marie, even if bound 
 by oath, would tell Charlotte, and Charlotte the cook ; 
 thence, through the grocer and the butcher, it would 
 reach other servants, and thus her friends. Then 
 Henri would be coupled with Suzanne, discussed, 
 perfidiously seated by her side if they met at dinner, 
 tacitly partnered for tennis. So Madame Duvernoy 
 bravely held her tongue and suffered the penalty. 
 
 The difficulty was not, however, one of those which 
 can exist unobserved in a household employing three 
 women-servants, of whom one has twenty-five and 
 another ten years' service. Within the week that 
 followed the dance Charlotte and Marie knew that 
 there was "something"; then the freemasonry of 
 service began to enlighten them; rumours filtered 
 
I40 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 through by accident. The concierge who had 
 delivered Henri's first letter had told everybody she 
 had ever known about le Monsieur de Mademoiselle 
 Suzanne; she had, among others, told the Bernays' 
 under-housemaid. The under-housemaid, having 
 called to fetch some documents, had a few minutes' 
 conversation with Charlotte; as soon as the visitor 
 had gone Charlotte rushed after Marie, who was 
 making Monsieur Duvernoy's bed. 
 
 " Marie," she cried, " Monsieur Henri est amoureux." 
 
 "Quoi?" said Marie, amazed. 
 
 " A-mou-reux," said Charlotte. 
 
 "Who's he in love with?" 
 
 "Suzanne Bernay." 
 
 " Suzanne Bernay ! How do you know ? " 
 
 "That's my business. Six weeks ago he wrote to 
 her and she's been answering him. Besides, he 
 danced half the night with her. They say he kissed 
 her as they danced . .. as if by accident." 
 
 Marie shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 "Ma pauvre Charlotte, you do believe things. 
 Besides, it's impossible." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because . . . enfin, la petite Bernay has no dot. 
 And how do you know they write to one another ? 
 He gets no letters to speak of." 
 
 Charlotte's black eyes began to dance. 
 
 "Oh, la, la, you are simple . . . et la Paste 
 Restante? Why, I . . ." She stopped rather 
 abruptly, while old Marie drew herself up stiffly. 
 
 "I'm surprised at you, Charlotte. All the same I 
 don't believe it." 
 
 But she did believe it, as Charlotte believed it, also 
 the cook. Soon the concierge, his wife and his bold 
 
FACE A FACE 141 
 
 girls knew, and Henri could not pass in and out 
 without being fusilladed by; eyes; he was looked at, 
 smiled at, almost winked at. All the servants of the 
 eight fiats had a twinkle for him. He was most of the 
 time so happy that this did not strike him as strange. 
 And, as the affair spread, Madame Duvernoy grew 
 more conscious of it, seemed to feel it thickening the 
 atmosphere. 
 
 Henri very soon felt the effects of the new develop- 
 ment. Now his mother surrounded him with ever 
 more loving care, ordered his favourite dishes, treated 
 him to a costly silk tie from Tremlett's. But he found 
 that he was being preached at, indirectly shot at. 
 
 "Henri," said Madame Duvernoy suddenly one 
 evening, "Pauline Chavel is engaged." 
 
 "Ah?" said Henri, much interested, for Pauline 
 was very beautiful; besides, he liked marriage talk 
 now. " Do I know the man ? " 
 
 "Monsieur de Castelac. Un tres beau parti." 
 
 "What?" cried Henri. "But ... but he's sixty 
 . . . she can't be in love with him." 
 
 "Of course not," said Madame Duvernoy, with a 
 gleam in her dark eyes. "Who's talking about that? 
 Of course he's not very young; still he's rich, 
 distingue, and has an old title. Besides, he adores 
 her." 
 
 "I should say so," said Henri, with a sneer; "any- 
 body would adore Pauline Chavel. But I say that to 
 sell a young girl like that is disgusting. That's what 
 it is — disgusting." 
 
 Madame Duvernoy repressed her anger, tried 
 diplomacy. 
 
 " Voyons, Henri, you're not serious. Marriage is 
 not a thing to be decided like that, by passion and 
 
142 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 all that; people must be suited as regards position 
 and fortune; then children come and affection. 
 Believe me, the happiest matches are those which are 
 reasonably arranged." 
 
 "So some people say. Anyhow, old Castelac won't 
 have many children, and what will his wife do then 
 with her life ? " 
 
 "Oh, well . . . perhaps there will be children, and 
 if there are none . . . there are other things; they'll 
 be rich, he has a castle near Libourne, and a motor- 
 car. Besides, she'll be free . . . there are lots of 
 compensations." 
 
 "Maman!" Henri had understood the suggestion 
 too well and was shocked. Six months before he 
 would have smiled, perhaps have said something 
 rather coarse. Now, however, he was enshrined in a 
 new idealism, saw love and marriage as beautifully 
 pure and final. 
 
 "Well, what?" Madame Duvernoy was annoyed, 
 having gone too far. 
 
 "You don't suggest . . .?" 
 
 "I don't suggest anything. I'm sure Pauline 
 Chavel will make him a model wife. Besides, that 
 doesn't concern anybody : she is a jeune fille bien 
 elevee; once she is married it is her husband's affair 
 to look after her. If he doesn't it'll be his fault." 
 
 "Maman," Henri submitted, after thinking a little, 
 "don't you think that all this . . . this irregularity 
 . . . comes from people who marry not loving one 
 another ? " 
 
 "No . . . certainly not. . . . Some women have 
 no self-respect." 
 
 "Has a woman no self-respect because she falls in 
 love?" 
 
FACE A FACE 143 
 
 "Her duty is to her husband. Ah, Henri, you are 
 ridiculous a la fin. One might think that I interfered 
 with you, that we were trying to force you to ... to 
 marry. . . . We don't interfere with you ... we 
 don't interfere with anything." 
 
 "Si, maman," said Henri in a humble voice, "you 
 won't let me marry Suzanne." 
 
 " Henri ! " The mothesig voice was tragic, so angry 
 and broken did it suddenly become. She dominated 
 her feelings, looked round for something to do. 
 
 "Let us speak of something else," she blustered. 
 
 "Maman. . . ." 
 
 "Non." 
 
 Henri's head bent under the heavy negative. He 
 could think of nothing to say. His spirit remained 
 as if standing in presence of a mental wall which he 
 could not scale. 
 
 n 
 
 "You will order a thirty centimes black loaf," said 
 Madame Duvernoy, "and . . ." 
 
 "Forty centimes, Madame," said Charlotte; "the 
 thirty centimes one will be too small." 
 
 " It'll be quite enough." 
 
 "Non, Madame," said old Marie; "last Thursday 
 you ran short of sandwiches." 
 
 "Well, what does it matter? There were lots of 
 cakes left." 
 
 "Some people want sandwiches," said Charlotte 
 obstinately. "What's the good of offering them 
 cake ? " 
 
 "Oh, you are annoying, Charlotte," said Madame 
 
144 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 Duvernoy, who, like Marie, could not withstand the 
 younger girl's logic. "I hate waste; we don't want 
 waste. You might as well throw the ten centimes 
 into the gutter." 
 
 "You're not going to throw them into the gutter; 
 you're going to buy a bigger loaf." 
 
 Old Marie began to laugh, and Madame Duvernoy, 
 struck by the absurdity of the situation, joined in. 
 
 "Bon," she said, "a forty centimes black loaf, to 
 please Charlotte, and a Moka cake at one franc fifty 
 from Chaumier. And while you're at Chaumier's 
 you may as well buy a dozen and a half petits fours 
 there." 
 
 Charlotte coughed significantly. Marie threw her 
 a quick glance. 
 
 "Doesn't Madame think . . ." she submitted, 
 "Chaumier is a good baker, but . . ." 
 
 "But what?" 
 
 "When it comes to cakes, he's only a baker, after 
 all." 
 
 "And his cakes are stale," Charlotte urged. 
 
 " Stale ? How do you know ? " 
 
 Old Marie smiled, and murmured — 
 
 "Madame doesn't remember the day Monsieur 
 Henri was so sick, because he'd bought twenty stale 
 cakes from him for one franc fifty, and eaten them in 
 one morning?" 
 
 "Yes, I remember," said Madame Duvernoy softly. 
 Henri was ten when he performed this disastrous feat. 
 She sighed. Why had Henri changed, become a big 
 difficult man ? "All the same," she added, "it doesn't 
 follow that because Monsieur Henri made himself 
 sick fourteen years ago Chaumier's cakes are all 
 stale." 
 
FACE A FACE 145 
 
 "Non, Madame," said old Marie submissively, 
 "tout de meme they're much better at Colombin's." 
 
 "Colombin ? You don't think I'm going to run all 
 the way to the Rue Cambon to buy three francs' worth 
 of cakes for four francs fifty?" 
 
 "Oh, Madame," said Charlotte, "c'est beaucoup 
 plus chic." 
 
 "Hum. Perhaps you're right, Charlotte. All the 
 same, why this new idea ? " 
 
 Charlotte and Marie looked at each other guiltily. 
 They could not very well say that the weekly "at 
 home " must be better done now that everybody knew 
 that Henri was "after" Mademoiselle Bernay, that 
 Madame Bernay must be shown they were nice 
 people. 
 
 "Oh, a new idea," said old Marie vaguely; "non, 
 Madame. I've often thought it would look better; 
 besides, that's where Madame Sarlat-Cohen buys 
 hers." This Marie knew to be untrue, but she knew 
 also that if Madame Sarlat-Cohen were asked point- 
 blank where she bought her cakes, she would say 
 "Colombin" or "Rumpelmayer." 
 
 "Ah?" Madame Duvernoy thought for a few 
 seconds. Certainly Madame Sarlat-Cohen was a dear 
 friend, but it wasn't nice of her to go to a celebrated 
 pastrycook behind her back. "Perhaps you're right, 
 Marie." 
 
 "Shall I go this morning?" asked old Marie 
 eagerly. 
 
 "Yes, or rather no; I'll go. You go to Chaumier 
 for the Moka cake, and I'll get eight or six g&teaux 
 noix de coco, or . . . wait; no, I'll get four tartines 
 Renaissance ; you can cut them in two, and they 
 cost the same." 
 
146 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 Charlotte and Marie dared not protest, having 
 already scored so heavily. They obtained that both 
 tea and chocolate should be served, and it was later 
 on discovered that, on their own initiative, they had 
 provided tumblers and iced water, to be drunk after 
 the chocolate, d. I'espagnole. There was no revolution 
 in the Duvernoy household, for Madame's day was 
 every Wednesday but the last in the month. Given 
 the habits of the young men, who usually entered the 
 drawing-room with their hats and sticks, there was 
 no need to provide a cloak-room. The food question 
 being settled, all that remained necessary was to order 
 the visiting-cards in the bowl. The Comtesse de 
 Balazan's card was found again ; unfortunately that 
 of Mr. Jacob Mahlstein, Ojficier de la Legion d'Hon- 
 neur, was dirty, but there was Madame Chavel's, and 
 now Pauline Chavel was going to marry M. de 
 Castelac its value increased. 
 
 Ill 
 
 " But your dress is delicious, ma chere amie," cried 
 Madame Sarlat-Cohen. "Anybody can see that you 
 go to Paquin 1 " 
 
 "Oh, Juliette, how can you be so ridiculous I Quite 
 a simple black silk 1 " 
 
 "Not at all," replied Madame Sarlat-Cohen, 
 "nothing is so elegant as black silk and point de 
 Venise." 
 
 " Charmant, charmant," said the cracked voice of 
 Mademoiselle Ravier. This was Monsieur Duver- 
 noy's elderly aunt, to whom he allowed five thousand 
 francs a year to live with the two Lacour girls. She 
 
FACE A FACE 147 
 
 sat, with a perpetual smile on her thin old lips, in her 
 faded clothes which had a knack of exhibiting a belt 
 ten years after the damnation of belts and of turning 
 into "one piece" garments whenever waists once 
 more became the rage. She was short-sighted. She 
 smiled. She agreed. Anybody could see that her 
 soul was in pawn. By her side sat the elder Lacour 
 girl, perhaps thirty, perhaps forty-five; who knows? 
 After thirty, if marriage has not come, it is all the 
 same, for French spinsters have no right to live : 
 they are merely tolerated by a humane law. 
 
 "Charmant, cKarmant," the Lacour phantom 
 repeated. She, too, wore what Jacques Sorel spite- 
 fully called "pseudo-clothes." 
 
 Madame Duvernoy beamed. Certainly her straight 
 back and good round figure were set off by her 
 striped black silk dress and lace guimpe. She looked 
 at her little plump hands and smiled deprecafingly 
 while she returned Madame Sarlat-Cohen's com- 
 pliments. The pious lady was brilliantly dressed in 
 bright blue, the most fatal colour she could have 
 selected, given her swarthy skin; her brown hands, 
 the fingers of which, very like toes, passed bedizened 
 through the air, leaving behind them the comet-like 
 trail of her diamonds. The discussion on clothes was 
 circumscribed, for Mademoiselle Ravier and Made- 
 moiselle Lacour were merely guests of the Barmecide. 
 
 "All the same," Madame Duvernoy sighed, "la 
 toilette is very expensive." 
 
 "Not at all," replied Madame Sarlat-Cohen ; "you 
 must be clever, that's all. You must buy remnants : 
 believe me, remnants are better than new pieces ; it is 
 the stuffs people do not buy which make the femme 
 elegante." 
 
148 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 Madame Duvernoy smiled, but Madame Sarlat- 
 Cohen was not aware that she had almost, if not quite, 
 brought off an epigram. 
 
 "And," she continued, "you must take trouble, 
 have energy. For instance, I bought a' petticoat at 
 the Printemps the other day, and when I got home it 
 did not fit, it was .too small. So I took it back and 
 made them exchange it for six pairs of stockings; 
 of course they didn't want to, but oh, I talked to the 
 girl " 
 
 " I expect you did, Juliette." 
 
 "I did. It doesn't do to let people be rude to you, 
 I talked to her like a dog." 
 
 Madame Duvernoy smiled at the vision of her 
 Semitic friend asserting her dignity; Mademoiselle 
 Ravier smiled in unison, and the poor Lacour ghost, 
 finding that she had been left behind, precipitately 
 grinned. 
 
 "You are right, Juliette," said Madame Duvernoy; 
 'Jlife is difficult nowadays; one must look after one- 
 self, everything is so dear. And, after all, money is 
 the most important thing in the world." 
 
 "Money," muttered Madame Sarlat-Cohen, "yes 
 ... all the same, there's love." 
 
 "Juliette, Juliette ! I shall tell Monsieur M^zin." 
 
 "What's Monsieur M^zin got to do with it?" the 
 little dark woman asked rather fiercely. "Always 
 your fusses, Marthe. Why, I can't look at a man . . . 
 one was enough, I can tell you. Oh, le manage 
 moderne, a nice institution I " 
 
 " I suppose you advocate free love ? " suggested her 
 friend. 
 
 "Do not be ridiculous. . . . I " 
 
 There was a moment of confusion, for Madame and 
 
FACE A FACE 149 
 
 Mademoiselle de Morenda were announced ; they were 
 greeted with httle cries of welcome, except by the poor 
 relations, who timidly offered to resign their chairs ; 
 but at once Letitia took the meeting in hand, put her 
 mother on a distant couch, selected for herself a stool, 
 and, turning her back on the inert spinsters, proceeded 
 to attack Madame Sarlat-Cohen. 
 
 "You were speaking of modern marriage?" she 
 suggested. 
 
 "Oui," cried Madame Sarlat-Cohen; "Madame 
 Duvernoy doesn't believe in love. It's blasphemy, 
 that's what it is." 
 
 "Well," said Letitia bluntly, "I should prefer 
 money to love; one can always get the second in 
 France when one has the first." 
 
 Madame Sarlat-Cohen threw up her hands with 
 an air of dismay. "Marthe," she gasped, "listen. 
 That's how young women talk, women who are going 
 to be wives." 
 
 "Oh, I'm not going to be a wife," said Letitia 
 smoothly. " I might be in Turkey where they buy us, 
 but here it's the other way about. And don't talk 
 of love : as I cannot afford a husband I shall not 
 be able to afford a lover, for a husband is the 
 preliminary stage." 
 
 "Letitia!" said Madame Duvernoy severely, "if 
 you talk like that, you will certainly not get a 
 husband." 
 
 "You may be right. Husbands are things you buy, 
 borrow or steal. I can't buy; borrow . . . well, that 
 comes after the third alternative, stealing. As the 
 sweet young thing must buy her man, and I have 
 no capital, I have but one chance : I must steal him 
 from her, surprise him, shock him ; I must be wild, 
 
i^o THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 extraordinaire, and then perhaps some lark, dazzled by 
 the mirror, will fall to my gun." 
 
 The four older women looked at one another with 
 dismay. Madame Duvernoy was deeply shocked, 
 Madame Satlat-Cohen genuinely indignant, for she 
 thought herself sentimental; the two spinsters were 
 stirred but frightened by this violent young thing. As 
 for Madame de Morenda, on her distant couch, she 
 did not move a muscle : she was waiting for Letitia 
 to have done. 
 
 "Letitia," said Madame Duvernoy, "I pray you, do 
 not talk like that. It makes a bad effect." 
 
 "Pooh, I shall marry an Englishman," said 
 Letitia ; " they like me, those I have met, even though 
 I do not tolerate le flirt." 
 
 "Ah, le flirt," interposed Madame Sarlat-Cohen, 
 "there is another of your modern institutions. In my 
 time one did not flirt, and less vitriol was thrown 
 about." 
 
 "Well," said Madame Duvernoy amiably, "there's 
 no connection between le flirt and le vitriol." 
 
 "There is a similarity," Letitia answered. "One 
 comes from the laxity of morals, the other from the 
 laxity of the law." 
 
 " Laxity I " cried Madame Sarlat-Cohen, " I should 
 think so ! Why, a woman can throw a barrel of 
 vitriol. . . ." 
 
 "A litre will do, chere Madame. . . ." 
 
 "Well, a litre, and she gets off! The jury 
 weep ! " 
 
 "I suppose most jurymen Have been in love," 
 suggested Madame Duvernoy. 
 
 The wrangle went on triangularly. Madame Sarlat- 
 Cohen, in virtue of the exquisite irony of things, 
 
FACE A FACE 151 
 
 attacking women for their love madness, this madness 
 of which she prated, Letitia defending them for giving 
 way to feelings she despised. Madame Duvernoy at 
 last stopped the quarrel and compyelled Letitia to hand 
 round the tea; the elderly Lacour girl rose too, for 
 after all she was unmarried and had her duties to 
 attend to. In the midst of the "five o'clock " M^zin 
 entered, in his habitual frock-coat, his black whiskers 
 and bald pate almost artificial in their intensity; a 
 few minutes later Jacques Sorel, yellow-haired and 
 equivocal, bent over Madame Duvernoy's hand. 
 There was clatter, some pushing as Letitia and the 
 Lacour girl fell over each other in the fulfilment of 
 their obligations. Madame de Morenda sat sadly on 
 the distant couch with a cup of tea in her hand; 
 nobody offered her milk or sugar : even the Lacour 
 girl felt that she was not worth a macaroon. 
 
 "Well, Monsieur M^zin," said Madame Sarlat- 
 Cohen in her most sprightly manner, "I hope you 
 remember my party wall." 
 
 "Madame, I dream of your party wall and regret 
 only that it separates us." 
 
 "Chut! Monsieur Mezin" cried Madame Duver- 
 noy, "that is almost a declaration." 
 
 "Of love," said Sorel mischievously, "the thing 
 that is nearest to war." 
 
 Letitia's eyes glittered with fighting lust. 
 
 "No," she said, "the thing that is nearest to war 
 is peace." 
 
 M6zin and the two women began to laugh. 
 
 " Voyons, young people," he said ponderously, "do 
 you know what you mean ? " 
 
 "Not a bit," said Sorel, "but you know that La 
 Fontaine says that madmen sell wisdom, that the 
 
152 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 Arabs believe they hive it, while the Scripture says 
 something about babes and sucklings." 
 
 "Ah, Monsieur Sorel," simpered Madame Sarlat- 
 Cohen, "you have too much wit. You dazzle us, you 
 make us ashamed of ourselves because we are not 
 clever." 
 
 "Pardon me, then." The young man pushed back 
 his yellow hair. " Wit, chere Madame, is no creature 
 of man's, it is ai habit." 
 
 "You should get rid of it," grumbled M6zin. 
 
 "Sell me your cure," replied Sorel. 
 
 Letitia began to laugh, while M^zin glared at the 
 young man with stupid ferocity : he had not under- 
 stood. Fearing that He might, Madame Duvernoy 
 threw her weight into the conversation, even tried to 
 drag in Mademoiselle Ravier. Bi^it the old aunt 
 refused to talk : she called the Lacour girl and stated 
 that she had had enough tea, and would now have 
 some chocolate, as well as another tartine Renaissance. 
 The spinster was busy too, drinking more and more 
 tea as she served other people and surreptitiously 
 returning to sandwiches affer having helped herself 
 to cake. Then Madame and Mademoiselle Chavel 
 were announced. The mother sailed in, swelling like 
 a caravel under full sail ; the lovely Pauline followed 
 her, diffident and triumphant, as if she wore already 
 the family jewels of the Comte de Castelac. Madame 
 Chavel refused to eat or drink. 
 
 "We are so busy," she said hurriedly, "so much 
 to do, so many visits. You see, everybody pursues 
 us; I have to see our friends and la marquise, the 
 mother of Monsieur de Castelac; she adores Pauline. 
 N'est-ce pas, Pauline ? " 
 
 Pauline did not raise her beautiful eyes. Every- 
 
FACE A FACE 153 
 
 body looked at her, Madame Duvernoy with approval, 
 Madame Sarlat-Cohen with anticipation, for she would 
 be a calling centre; the two elderly spinsters feared 
 to look, as if they might be blinded. Alone Letitia 
 threatened to be aggressive, while Sorel assumed a 
 sardonic expression. 
 
 " Oui, maman" she said at length, "one owes some- 
 thing to one's family." 
 
 Madame Chavel beamed. . 
 
 "La famille," she said ponderously, "is sacred. 
 Every Tuesday we dine at my mother's, and every 
 Thursday at my father-in-law's. Of course, now we 
 go at least once a week to Madame de Castelac ; later 
 on I shall expect Pauline and her husband every 
 Wednesday." 
 
 "That's a pity," said Sorel, "that leaves three 
 days." 
 
 "Oh, there are other calls. Every week my mother 
 comes to us the same evening as does my father-in- 
 law, but that's quite en famille." 
 
 "That leaves two days," said Mdzin, taking up 
 Sorel's gentle sneer. 
 
 " But what are you complaining of ? " cried Madame 
 Sarlat-Cohen. 
 
 "You, too, Monsieur M6zin, you want to destroy 
 the family," said Madame Duvernoy. 
 
 "In our world," said Madame Chavel stiffly, "one 
 respects convention." 
 
 "You are an iconoclast," said the perfidious Sorel. 
 
 M6zin bowed his dull head under the storm. What 
 had he said ? 
 
 Soon the old people were exchanging once more 
 their opinions on the sacredness of the family tie, 
 while Letitia' and Sorel tried to draw Pauline. 
 
154 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 " What's it like being a Comtesse ? " asked Letitia. 
 
 "I don't know," said Pauline shyly. 
 
 "You anticipate, Mademoiselle," said Sorel. 
 
 Pauline blushed. 
 
 "You never can tell," said Sorel, increasing her 
 confusion. Letitia looked at him angrily. 
 
 "Monsieur Sorel," she said finally, "you respect 
 nothing." 
 
 "I do, I do," he protested, "I respect ugliness, 
 vice, deformity, dishonesty, cowardice, greed." 
 
 "Well, that's a nice collection I " 
 
 "As you like. It means, at any rate, that I am a 
 good citizen who honours the social system in which 
 he lives." 
 
 Letitia looked at him for a second, shrugged her 
 shoulders. "A'h, you cynics," she said at last, "how 
 sentimental you are. You only hate because you 
 love." 
 
 "Possibly. If that is so, then your friend Henri 
 Duvernoy is a cynic, for he thinks he loves right 
 enough." 
 
 "What do you mean?" Letitia asked breathlessly. 
 
 "How many times did he dance with la petite 
 Bernay," the young man whispered. 
 
 Letitia tightened her lips. Pauline's eyes opened 
 wider and became rather rapt; she too had noticed 
 and wondered, as she danced with the old beau, 
 Monsieur de Castelac, her husband-elect. 
 
 "Letitia," said Madame Duvernoy sharply, "you 
 are not helping anybody." 
 
 Madame Duvernoy broke in — scattered the group. 
 She had heard that wlhisper, that fatal whisper — knew 
 that now the world was going to talk. Still, with 
 splendid courage, she smiled upon Madame Chavel, 
 
FACE A FACE 155 
 
 who left busily explaining that she still had four ca;lls 
 to pay. For another half-hour she painfully kept the 
 conversation alive; she wondered horribly whether 
 Madame Sarlat-Cohen had heard; if she had, all was 
 over, but she showed no sign. Little by little the 
 drawing-room cleared; M6zin left, soon followed by 
 Madame Sarlat-Cohen, still innocent and voluble. 
 As Letitia sulked Jacques Sorel thought well to carry 
 his paradoxes to another place before the end of calling 
 hours. The half-hour dragged into the hour, for 
 Mademoiselle Ravier and the Lacour girl stayed. 
 They were poor and knew not when to go; besides, 
 the sandwiches were not finished. 
 
 At last Madame Duvernoy was alone. She felt one 
 moment broken and then enraged. But she never 
 thought of yielding, even when Henri arrived and 
 kissed her cheek; she executed a preconceived plan, 
 handing him a small parcel. 
 
 " It's . . . L'Armee Contre la Nation ... by Urbain 
 Gohier," she said. 
 
 "Oh, maman! " 
 
 "Yes, but, Henri, don't tell your father I gave it 
 you . . . you know how he hates the Dreyfusards." 
 
 Henri kissed her again, but he could not know what 
 it meant to her, this fostering in him of a political 
 doctrine his father had taught her to hate. He could 
 not know how abjectly indifferent she felt to every- 
 thing, his faith in men, politics, God — how utterly 
 she would brush aside her opinions and her husband's 
 teaching — if he only would stay hers. 
 
CHAPTER THE THIRD 
 
 BATAILLE 
 I 
 
 Henri read L'Armee Contre la Nation with a fine 
 joy. He caught himself, as he walked the streets, 
 repeating phrases, culled perhaps from the book, 
 perhaps from some friendly newspaper, such as : 
 "Braid grows on the sleeves of our generals as does 
 moss on rotten logs." But he did not mentally thank 
 his mother, largely because he did not associate her 
 with politics. He was too well accustomed to find 
 Frenchwomen interested solely in their household, 
 their children, their clothes, perchance their lover 
 (though these in his world were few), interested too 
 in the pornographic pseudo-antique which represents 
 for the Boulevard the latest drama. He had analysed 
 vaguely their taste for locating the Acropolis on 
 Montmartre hill, among the little hells which call 
 themselves cabarets; he had felt the futility of them, 
 the oversexed stupidity which made them pick out 
 of Mirbeau, Paul Adam, Muhlfeld, Mend^s, Pierre 
 Louys, the more stimulating portions, while they 
 ignobly left behind the fine social thesis of the one, 
 the wild or languid grace of the others ; he knew too, 
 though he was too impressed to criticise, that their 
 raves for Lalique or Nau jewellery, their sessions 
 at Claude Monet's shows in the Durand-Ruel Gallery, 
 
 156 
 
BATAILLE 157 
 
 their Japanese art, their Chinese art, their Etruscan 
 art, their mauve potteries (colour of an immature 
 swan), their Liberty stuffs, their English furniture 
 and their Russian tea (with lemon) — he knew that 
 all this was part and parcel of Paris, Paris a sham 
 and Paris a shell, Paris that postures and grins ape- 
 actorlike before its cheap mirror, Paris the world's 
 H6tel M^tropole, where all gold is brass, where 
 marble is wood and wood is papier mdchd ... if 
 Henri could have torn away the veil, how gladly 
 would he have expressed his secret feeling and called 
 Paris a twopenny Babylon ! 
 
 It was Henri's weakness that he felt rather than 
 understood things; his was never the clear vision 
 which enables the brain dispassionately to weigh and 
 judge things and men. No lover of the country, for 
 the Parisian born is a citizen ever, he was not in tune 
 with his times ; Jhe current of life seemed too fast 
 and too turbulent, too choked above all with the 
 pretence of wealthy society, Adrien Pervenche's 
 clothes, Jacques Sorel's epigrams, and chic things, 
 chic women, chic restaurants, chic preachers at Saint 
 Philippe du Roule. All he knew was that in this 
 rotting society which rested like a phosphorescent 
 screen over the solidities of the bourgeoisie, there was 
 only one thing that stood out massive and simple, and 
 that was Suzanne, a reality among unrealities. 
 
 He was happy in his love, for love it truly was and 
 he dared believe it. Nearly every day brought him 
 a letter addressed to the etude, for he had made suit- 
 able arrangements with the concierge, and it was an 
 unfailing joy for him to find each letter more tender 
 than its forerunner as a flower unfolding, blossom out 
 even into restrained but perceptible passion. Nothing, 
 
158 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 in these days, could daunt the lover's courage, not the 
 short-sighted but inquisitive looks of old Loupil, when 
 he more than once caught him covertly reading the 
 letter of the day, nor the more open remarks of the 
 cheap Don Juans, Sarmin and Morel. He was so 
 wonderfully above them because distinguished, 
 because the owner of such a love. 
 
 At home the situation had hardly changed, for 
 Madame Duvernoy, as the days passed and nothing 
 showed that Henri's name was coupled with that of 
 Suzanne, began to discount the danger, to doubt its 
 existence even, as a threatened man who anxiously 
 awaits the first symptoms of some fell disease feels 
 hope growing in his breast when they do not appear. 
 The gift of the book was as much an attempt at 
 reconquest as an evidence of affection ; it showed that 
 Madame Duvernoy had minutely thought out which 
 of all things would most please her son. She had 
 pitched upon a book which pandered to his views 
 and given it him, as she would have given him her 
 heart if, like Richepin's hero, he had wanted it. 
 One thing only she could not give, the thing for which 
 Henri mutely asked whenever he looked her in the 
 eyes. Prayer and denial were ever in their faces; a 
 subtle tug-of-war pervaded their most innocent words 
 and deeds. At times Madame Duvernoy would raise 
 her head covertly to look at Henri, because she had 
 felt round her the heavy atmosphere of his plea; 
 nothing was said, but their two desires, the dynamic 
 and the static, seemed grimly to face one another, to 
 press panting surface to surface like interlocked 
 wrestlers who strain and desperately resist without a 
 groan. There were battles too, cruel little battles like 
 fights in the dark, when Henri had on his lips the 
 
BATAILLE i59 
 
 words he would utter, his mother the curt refusal that 
 threatened to burst its bonds before he could speak, 
 when a disagreement as to the choice of a play, the 
 place where they would walk, became pregnant with 
 significance. Commands became tyrannies and 
 refusals rebellions; the mother could not assert her 
 rights to obedience without feeling that her son read 
 them as cruel decrees, while he could not be unruly 
 without stabbing her to the soul, for it meant that 
 he loved her no more. 
 
 Monsieur Duvernoy seemed to buzz in the midst of 
 this tenseness like an irrelevant fly, to exaggerate by 
 his petulance and his irritability his unimportance in 
 the scheme; he played no part in the struggle, but 
 walked on as a transitory phantom busied with trifles, 
 business, money, a railway case, politics, the shuf- 
 fling on the vague board of Parliament of little card- 
 board figures. He was the foil and yet, as he passed 
 through their lives unscathed and untouched by the 
 conflict, he was the thing that often parted them and 
 then cast them together to tumble and rage silently 
 like tiny boys who roll in the gutter, speechless with 
 fury and dealing one another with theix puny strength 
 ridiculous little blows. 
 
 All through, the letters of Suzanne were cast softly 
 upon Henri's heated and uneasy soul as, after Actium, 
 the legend says, baskets of rose petals were emptied 
 on the sweating downcast brows of the galley slaves. 
 She was for him, as for them, relief from the blue 
 sea, bluer sky, brown sand, the cruel golden boats. 
 
i6o THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 II 
 
 But passion, which gladly feeds awhile on absence, 
 soon becomes exasperated if it must long so live; 
 the loved being slowly clothes itself, as seen from the 
 distance through the lovely cloudland of memory, 
 with the colours of the rainbow; it becomes a spirit, 
 a principle of sweetness endowed with all virtues and 
 beauties, a power whose remoteness is healing, whose 
 faint and roseate picture smooths when evoked the 
 wrinkles from the chafed soul. For awhile it sits 
 aloof and beneficent upon its column of mist; it 
 haunts day-dreams and makes of them gorgeous 
 fantasies where abstract hands cling in vows and 
 humid eyes look hungrily, then contentedly, at the 
 sensuous pageant of its presence ; it is love itself, love 
 sublimated, brought by a spiritual process to the 
 highest pitch of mental intensity. Then, and this is 
 not the waning but the materialising which drags the 
 dream to earth, extinguishes its star and detaches its 
 wings, clothes it in a body and gives it breath, unease 
 begins to prey upon the lover, to fill him with fears 
 without a name, unreasoned doubt; then there are 
 aches and pains in the very essence of the bond. 
 The longing, which at first was gentle and melancholy 
 as the sweet sorrowing for a hope long dead, becomes 
 precise and exacting; it thrusts its acid flavour into 
 the air the lover breathes, courses through and sours 
 his blood. It becomes more definite, it haunts and 
 then holds, obsesses and then pervades him, cleaving 
 to him until he knows that nothing can free him from 
 the hellish shirt except sight of the thing loved. He 
 
BATAILLE i6i 
 
 is then ready for extravagance, for the dream has 
 become a reality, is held up far above him but visible 
 in bold colours, no longer in subtle shades ; and if he 
 may not grasp it he is ready to snatch, to tear at it 
 and destroy it, to destroy himself and the rules that 
 govern his life. 
 
 Henri passed through all these stages. He knew 
 the first days of memory and anticipation when he 
 perpetually evoked Suzanne, her pale skin, her dark- 
 shaded eyes, the faint down on her short upper lip, 
 and her long arms with the slim hands. Without 
 effort he evoked her as he sat at his work, as he walked 
 the streets. She was very much then la tres chere, 
 la tres belle, who filled his heart with radiance, but 
 the repetition of the pleasure seemed to leave him 
 unsatisfied, worse indeed : his passion felt burnt 
 and withered as are lips that have fed too long on 
 kisses. He became less able to endure the parting; 
 Suzanne's letters, carrying some faint but reminiscent 
 scent, exasperated rather than allayed his unrest. 
 He could have cried out when his mother casually 
 mentioned one day that the Bernays had called. He, 
 poor fool, was meanwhile sitting at Fouquet's Bar, 
 whither he had followed a woman because she had 
 something of Suzanne's lazy walk and her length of 
 neck. The woman had turned to look at him curi- 
 ously and he had turned away, bitterly disappointed 
 and bitterly conscious too that all women would now 
 disappoint him. And Suzanne had passed half-an- 
 hour in his mother's drawing-room, half-an-hour 
 during which he could have looked at her, heard her 
 voice, perhaps touched her hand as he handed her a 
 cup of tea. The shock was such that his weak will 
 flickered into action : he must see her, if not that 
 
 S M 
 
1 62 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 day, then the next. He thought of calling, but he 
 knew that he was too cowardly to risk a denial, to 
 play for the great stake and be told the ladies were 
 not at home ; above all, though he was too bombastic 
 to own it to himself, he dared not risk detection and 
 fight his mother on a fact : to fight her on an abstract 
 point was hard enough. 
 
 He did not, however, vacillate in his intention, 
 which was to see Suzanne, for to see her would be a 
 great deal. He easily obtained from old Loupil leave 
 for the day ; the old man looked at him shrewdly with 
 his prominent eyes and nodded assent. Henri took 
 up his straw hat and hurried out of the etude, hatefully 
 impelled by Morel's mumbled sneer, "Compliments a 
 Mademoiselle." At eleven o'clock he stood opposite 
 the house in the Rue de Miromesnil. He was 
 favoured by fortune, for here was a shop to be let, so 
 that he could stand in the entrance well sheltered to 
 the right and left and practically sure of being left 
 undisturbed. His eyes roved between the porch and 
 the windows of the flat; nothing appeared at these, 
 and all he could see were the maroon taffeta curtains 
 softly moving in the warm June air behind the heavy 
 lace blinds. He waited, and every time a servant or 
 a tradesman came out of the porch a wave of excite- 
 ment passed over him. The life of the street passed 
 him by and still he waited patiently, suspiciously 
 watched at times by a sergent de ville. The old 
 women pushed their barrows of vegetables by; one, 
 whose stock was all lovely red cherries, stopped in 
 front of him. 
 
 "Des censes, Monsieur, des belles censes, quatre 
 sous la livre." 
 
 "Non, merci." 
 
BATAILLE 163 
 
 " Voyons, Monsieur, qiuitre sous de cerises pour 
 Mademoiselle." 
 
 Henri blushed, the woman began to laugh. He 
 longed to buy the beautiful cherries, for it was hot 
 and anxiety made his throat feel dry, but he thought 
 it unseemly to be found by Suzanne, if such bliss 
 was to be his, grossly eating fruit under her windows. 
 
 "Elles sont belles, Monsieur," the woman persisted. 
 Henri did not reply. She turned to a servant and 
 filled a bagful, whispering meanwhile. The servant, 
 a young woman, laughed, eyeing Henri with an air 
 of invitation. Their tittering irritated him; he felt 
 they were classing him, discovering and soiling his 
 dream. At last the cherry-vendor began to push her 
 barrow away. The servant-girl looked at Henri 
 mischievously and, suddenly, threw at him a couple 
 of cherries. 
 
 Two hours passed, then another. He did not think 
 of his lunch, nor of the explanation he would have 
 to give at home ; the stream of life briskly eddied in 
 the Rue de Miromesnil : carriages, motor-cars passed 
 by, veiling, much to his annoyance, his view of the 
 porch. A red-and-yellow striped van belonging to 
 the Bon March6 obstructed it horribly for ten minutes ; 
 still, as it was the best place, he had to stay. At two 
 o'clock he was rewarded. Suddenly two figures came 
 out of the porch and a warm feeling of gladness 
 seemed to ooze from his pores. He was conscious of 
 Madame Bernay's presence, but his physical eyes saw 
 only Suzanne, Suzanne slim and elegant in her striped 
 linen coat and skirt, her light straw hat trimmed with 
 black ribbon bows. They hesitated a second, then 
 turned to the right, passed him on the other side of 
 the street without seeing him. He watched them 
 M 2 
 
1 64 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 out of sight, impelled to follow but fearing to obey 
 the impulse. His eyes took in the delicious swaying 
 movement of her body, the neat sharpness of her walk. 
 Then they vanished and the world was empty once 
 more. He idly wondered whether he had not better 
 go and have lunch, but sentimental hunger domi- 
 nated the physical. He felt he must see her again. 
 He would wait. 
 
 He waited while the afternoon waned and a deeper 
 warmth filled the summer air. His thoughts, entirely 
 concentrated into a single channel, revolved round 
 Suzanne, whom he pictured in some shop, buying 
 those soft stuffs of which she made stems for the flower 
 of her face ; he imagined her as she walked erect and 
 smiling, followed by the admiring eyes of men, and 
 later, perhaps at the Th^ de Ceylan, or at the cheaper 
 Kardomah or the Medova, or at Neal's in the Rue 
 de Rivoli. He rather liked to think of her at Neal's, 
 though the chances were a thousand to one against 
 her being there, for the contrast between her and the 
 boyish femininity of the tweed-clad English girls who 
 frequented Neal's was agreeable ; it was all to her 
 advantage : she was so soft and gentle, while they 
 had large hands, wore low-heeled thick boots, and did 
 not powder their noses. Henri reflected that he did 
 not like those hermaphrodite sporting animals who 
 preferred soap (Pears' soap, the soap of England 
 as France understands it) to verveine and iris 
 d'Houbigant. 
 
 He was tired, for now he had stood six hours 
 almost; it was five, and already many young men 
 with violent ties had passed him by, officials from 
 the Ministere de I'Interieur no doubt, and many day- 
 boys from the Lyc^e Condorcet on their way to their 
 
BATAILLE 165 
 
 proud homes near the Champs Elys6es. He was so 
 tired that the cramp which had several times attacked 
 his legs had now vanished, leaving them stiff as if 
 the muscles had hardened. Still he did not go, for 
 he felt assured that soon he would be rewarded, see 
 her return laden with parcels, as graceful, as sprite- 
 like as his -dream. And as he thought she appeared, 
 as in his evocation, carrying two small parcels done 
 up in brown paper and boldly marked with the 
 "Lion" trade-mark of the Louvre. She was still as 
 neat and as erect, swaying a little as she walked like 
 some beautiful trim frigate on a softly heaving sea. 
 He recognised from afar her striped coat and her light 
 hat, her white-gloved hands, her small arched boots 
 and her flower-like pert ingenuous face. She came 
 nearer and Henri smiled as he looked at her, his 
 glance ignoring the quiet and faded figure of her 
 mother. They drew nearer, they were about to enter 
 the porch, when Suzanne raised her eyes, looked 
 towards him. At once he saw a hot wave sweep over 
 her face, drowning forehead, neck and ears in 
 crimson ; he saw her eyes glow and her lips part, 
 half laughing, half tremulous, as if her emotion 
 brought her as near to tears as to smiles. She did 
 not, however, stop, but followed her mother through 
 the porch. 
 
 At once the joy which hadpassed, fleet as a meteor, 
 through every cell of Henri's body vanished in the 
 immense reaction of his weariness; his legs ached 
 again and he suddenly shivered as he became aware 
 that the sun was near its setting : he could see its 
 dying rays gild the roofs of the houses opposite. The 
 transition had been sharp, but, as if animated by some 
 vague hope, he remained standing in the street, looking 
 
1 66 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 up stupidly towards the maroon taffeta curtains. 
 He wondered whether she would appear at a window, 
 and passionately willed that she should. A curtain 
 moved, stirring his despond, but it was only the 
 wind. Then as his eyes roved inquisitive over the 
 four windows, her face appeared at the last, exquis- 
 itely thrown into relief by the dark background; it 
 seemed to hover like a mysterious lovely ghost. For 
 a while those two looked at each other with serious 
 faces in which were sorrow and longing unbearable 
 in their intensity. 
 
 Henri recovered first; he felt he wanted to call to 
 her, to touch her. Before he could decide upon a 
 course of action he was across the street, under the 
 porch. As he climbed the stairs his heart pounded 
 against his ribs and there revolved in his brain 
 a vague plan of ringing the bell, entering the flat 
 upon some pretext he could not think of, bearing 
 her away. But he stopped on the second landing in 
 front of the polished door and its heavy bronze 
 handles and found he dared not act, did not know 
 what to do; a blind instinct told him, however, that 
 he must face the risk of being seen, of being ignobly 
 caught by Bernay himself, and hope that Suzanne 
 would understand that he was at her door desperately 
 waiting. 
 
 Five minutes elapsed, five long minutes. Henri 
 could feel his hands, his shoulders and knees quiver- 
 ing with excitement. At last he heard footsteps in 
 the flat, the closing of a door, the footsteps growing 
 nearer. Slowly the door opened and he saw framed 
 in it the lovely dark head, the long-lashed eyes, the 
 red mouth that quivered as it smiled. He looked at 
 the glowing eyes in which there was fear, dimly 
 
BATAILLE 167 
 
 realising what this adventure meant for Suzanne, what 
 she must be suffering as she felt behind her the 
 pressure of a household's hostile curiosity; he knew 
 the heroism a French girl must display if she so 
 defies the laws of her sex, the risks she ran if detected, 
 evil talk, threats and the cruel torture of her mother's 
 reproaches. She was wholly giving, for she was of 
 her nation, of a nation that gives nothing until it 
 gives all and gives that all when it yields a part. 
 
 They looked at one another, still serious and stirred. 
 Then Henri quickly took a step forward. He put his 
 trembling hands on Suzanne's slim shoulders and 
 knew the ultimate joy of feeling her respond, draw 
 closer to him without coercion, without being wooed. 
 He held her in his arms, soft, all of her yielding to 
 him, and as he kissed her lips, pressed abandoned 
 and desperate his mouth against hers, he did not 
 think, or hear or feel aught but her in his arms, 
 her his already and for ever his. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Madame Sarlat-Cohen always gave her select little 
 tea-parties at the Elys^e Palace Hotel, for her prin- 
 ciple was to have her money's worth ; thus she avoided 
 the recent Ritz and the newer Rumpelmayer, for tea 
 at the former cost two francs fifty, while at Rumpel- 
 mayer's you never could tell : an extra cake cost its 
 weight in silver, while an unexpected guest with an 
 appetite might have compromised the stability of her 
 banking account. Juliette Sarlat-Cohen was careful 
 and did not "tie up her dog with sausages"; she 
 
1 68 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 liked to give a minimum sum for a maximum result, 
 and her somewhat florid Oriental tastes made her 
 prefer to the austerities of the Place Vendome the 
 spaces and heights of the Elys6e Palace Hotel. She 
 liked it ; she haunted it, threaded its maze of reading- 
 rooms, smoking-rooms and boudoirs with the queer 
 sense of pleasure she might have felt in the Odessa 
 ghetto, for its opulence awoke response in the 
 daughter of a race accustomed to skies so blue as to 
 be vulgar, to crude-coloured stuffs, to gildings and 
 perfumes. For her the Elys^e Palace Hotel was a 
 beautiful thing, its tortured white frontage where 
 pillars, wrought-iron balconies and stone garlands of 
 flowers war for predominance, the quintessence of all 
 arts. In this she was partly right, for the building is 
 certainly catholic : the Renaissance and the chateaux 
 of the Loire have given it much, but Rome has not 
 been forgotten, while the flamboyant style flamboies 
 in it and American taste rears it high aloft. The 
 inside of the hotel, however, was her true paradise. 
 She liked the feel under her feet of its over-heavy 
 carpets, the folds of its official curtains, the far 
 horizon of its vaulted ceilings ; she liked the proper 
 waiters, the heavy silver, the engraved glassware, the 
 mats on which there was too much lace, the pots in 
 which were too many palms; she liked its profuse- 
 ness, its assertive band, and found that her self-esteem 
 increased when she looked through the windows at 
 the humble folk on the footwalk. 
 
 Madame Sarlat-Cohen's parties somehow suggested 
 the place in which she held them ; they were not so 
 much vulgar as Parisian, which is slightly different : 
 while vulgarity strives after pomp, Paris strives after 
 effect, and Madame Sarlat-Cohen was attuned to her 
 
BATAILLE 169 
 
 city. This day the party had been beautifully cal- 
 culated. Round the table she had booked in the 
 middle of the largest window of the largest room on 
 the Champs Elys^es (the largest of the four streets 
 on which the hotel looks) was a select company fit 
 to be seen by any of her acquaintances. They were 
 Madame Duvernoy and Henri, for they were useful 
 though not smart; Madame Chavel and Pauline, 
 because they were the latest thing; Madame de Tras 
 Los Rios, because she was Mexican and a recent 
 catch ; and Adrien Pervenche, because in his heavenly 
 mercy he had consented to come. Madame Sarlat- 
 Cohen smiled benevolently upon the guests who were 
 going to cost her fifteen francs fifty (no more, she 
 dared tip the waiter one franc fifty), and reflected that 
 this would liquidate at least two dinners and a seat 
 in Madame Chavel 's box at the Op^ra. Adrien Per- 
 venche raised in his long manicured hand the cup of 
 China tea and, gently inhaling its aroma, made an 
 announcement in the sudden hush^ 
 
 " I am going to be a dressmaker." 
 
 There was a chorus of little screams, delighted and 
 scandalised. 
 
 "Oh, Monsieur Pervenche, la bonne idee," said 
 Madame Chavel. 
 
 "You'll give me special terms, I hope," added 
 Madame Sarlat-Cohen. 
 
 "You are a practical young man, Monsieur Per- 
 venche," said Madame Duvernoy, smiling. "You 
 will make a fortune, I am sure." 
 
 "Oh," said Pervenche, very languid, "it is not 
 fortune I want. It is an interest, something in which 
 to express my soul." 
 
 "Ah, how true that is," sighed Madame de Tras 
 
I70 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 Los Rios, "in these days of vulgarity life is hard for 
 the artist." 
 
 Pervenche looked approvingly at the Mexican's 
 black eyes and splendidly stayed bust, but did not 
 address her directly. 
 
 "Clothes," he said thoughtfully, as he threw him- 
 self back in his chair and joined his rosy finger-tips, 
 "are the expression of woman. A woman without 
 her clothes is not a woman . . . she is an animal, 
 a beautiful animal, but no more. Nudity is equal- 
 itarian, democratic and therefore vulgar, while clothes 
 are individual, distinctive, and therefore aristocratic." 
 
 "Ah, how right you are," said Madame Sarlat- 
 Cohen, "that's what I always think when I buy a 
 hat." 
 
 "So I see, chere Madame," replied Pervenche, 
 whose fine eyes cruelly roved over her red feathers, 
 "and it is therefore to clothes I will devote myself. 
 I will be a vestal and my temple is chosen." 
 
 " Who are you going to ? " cried the lovely Pauline, 
 speaking for the first time. The beautiful dark eyes 
 were shining; the discussion was causing her heart 
 to palpitate as it never had for the Comte de Castelac. 
 
 "Paquin? Doucet? Callot?" suggested Madame 
 Sarlat-Cohen eagerly. 
 
 "Worth?" contributed Madame de Tras Los 
 Rios. 
 
 "Redfern?" said Henri sardonically. Pervenche 
 looked at him with undisguised contempt, and 
 replied — 
 
 "No, Monsieur Duvernoy; I wish to make clothes, 
 not caparisons for horses." 
 
 Laughter rippled round Petronius. The party 
 would have liked to applaud. 
 
BATAILLE 171 
 
 "My temple," said Pervenche, "will be my own. 
 I will call myself ' Robsay-Mantho.' " 
 
 "Ah, tres anglais!" 
 
 "Oh, how witty!" 
 
 "That will be very chic." 
 
 " I suppose you will be very dear ? " Madame 
 Sarlat-Cohen angled. 
 
 " Very dear. The basis of success in dressmaking, 
 chere Madame, is never to accept an order." 
 
 "That hardly sounds like business," said Madame 
 Duvernoy. 
 
 "Appearances deceive you, Madame. It is busi- 
 ness. So long as you run after orders you will find 
 that they run away; but give it out that you are 
 engaged for three years ahead and duchesses will ask 
 you to dinner, rich women will buy at any price 
 options on other women's prior rights, and the 
 prettiest of all will clasp you round the knees and 
 weep for mercy." 
 
 "You are cynical," said Madame de Tras Los Rios. 
 
 " I ? " said Pervenche, with an air of innocence- 
 "You malign me. I am only speaking the truth. 
 But that, of course, is very cynical." 
 
 "I suppose it is quite true," said Madame Sarlat- 
 Cohen; "I should like a rohe d'interieur from 
 Robsay-Mantho." 
 
 Henri looked on with unconcealed disgust. He 
 thought them all hateful : Madame de Tras Los Rios 
 all eyes and ogles, the lovely enthralled Pauline, her 
 mother and even his own tolerant and friendly, 
 Madame Sarlat-Cohen lying in wait to secure a pro- 
 mise if Pervenche gave her a chance to do so. It 
 struck him as the discussion went on that all this 
 was horribly futile and unreal, and, as his eyes roved 
 
172 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 over the lounge where almost every table was 
 occupied, he was overwhelmed by an immense long- 
 ing for Suzanne and her spontaneous love. Round 
 him every group more or less reproduced his own 
 party. The foreign element was a strong minority, 
 mostly Spanish-American ; it screamed and waved its 
 hands and glittered ; it paraded its rings and its new 
 clothes, full of good-humour, the tolerant good- 
 humour of conquerors. They knew, this mongrel 
 crowd, whipped up from the coffee plantations of 
 Brazil, these simians from Warsaw and Cracow whose 
 fathers had felt the knout, these sleek Syrians and 
 Greeks with lovely hands and eyes liquid and treacher- 
 ous as those of leopards, they knew that they were 
 well settled on the garbage heap of shady finance, 
 ostentatious motor-cars, eighty-pound frocks and 
 salacious plays — that they were the true masters of a 
 fading Latin people, that they were the new Parisians 
 if not Paris itself. 
 
 Henri watched them, full of distaste. He disliked 
 them because they were opulent, because their pocket- 
 books were bursting ; he despised them because they 
 so brutally were. Scattered among them were the 
 French, and he disliked them equally. For the 
 panorama of the great hall was very much that of 
 Paris itself. There sat the Frenchwomen of the new 
 smart set, women stiff in their secret armour of leather 
 and steel, with set smiles on their faces and an air 
 of fictitious excitement, an almost drunken excite- 
 ment, so steeped were they in their lust for these 
 pleasures of decay. Beyond, on the broad sidewalk 
 of the Champs Elys^es, passed the Sunday proces- 
 sion of the French, stupefied bourgeois fathers whose 
 youth had gone in futilities, who were now becoming 
 
BATAILLE 173 
 
 fat, their wives with hard faces and cruel avaricious 
 mouths, their few children, puny as befits the 
 inheritors of such a generation. 
 
 All this ugliness, understandable or incomprehen- 
 sible, filled Henri with a growing desire to be quit of 
 it all, to steal away with Suzanne to another place : 
 Auteuil, where are little villas behind walled gardens, 
 or the Rive Droite, where the Faubourg St. Ger- 
 main still stands aloof from modern temptations : 
 dinners at Armenonville, rides in Panhard cars and 
 seats on boards of directors. He wanted to fly from 
 this place where everything was something provided 
 it were nothing, where clothes mattered and wealth, 
 and titles, and chic, and wit, where love was funny 
 or bestial, honour a commodity and hope limited by 
 immediate desire. And now Pervenche was talking 
 again. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "I was only saying so the other 
 day to Vieilleroche, the Comte de Vieilleroche, you 
 know. He was asking me whether he should place 
 his coronet on the new paduasoy with which he is 
 having the chairs at the manor re-seated. I said, 
 ' No, Vieilleroche, you will not do this thing.' " 
 
 "You were quite right, Monsieur Pervenche," said 
 Madame Chavel; "I am always saying to my son- 
 in-law — well, my future son-in-law — that coronets are 
 vulgar and that you can buy them from the Pope by 
 the pound." 
 
 "By the pound sterling, chere Madame. You are 
 always right, Madame, you have le sens des choses 
 aristocrates . But my reason was not that. You see, 
 vulgarity has become aristocratic since the Americans 
 introduced vS'a Majeste le Dollar. My reason was that 
 an old friend of mine, le Capitaine Massarin " 
 
174 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 "A charming man," said Madame de Tras Los 
 
 Rios. 
 
 "You know him?" asked Pervenche, genuinely 
 surprised that anybody should be so smart as to know 
 his friends. "Well, Massarin was calling the other 
 day with my old schoolfellow the Due de Gueret on 
 the Baronne Galgenstein. You should see their 
 coronets ! They have them on the plate and on the 
 plates, on the walls and over the porch; there isn't a 
 trouser button in the house that hasn't its coronet, 
 while I hear she is having the books re-bound so as 
 to ennoble the binding." 
 
 " Including those of the Banque Galgenstein ? " 
 asked Henri. 
 
 "No," said Pervenche, with a smile, "she would 
 like to, but then the binder would see the entries." 
 
 "Bad boy," said Madame Sarlat-Cohen wag- 
 gishly. 
 
 "All financiers are the same," said Madame Chavel, 
 "our world would not know them." 
 
 "Which, if you will forgive me, chere Madame, 
 makes Tout-Paris anxious to go to their parties. But, 
 to resume, after Massarin, who for all his smart 
 friends is a democrat, had sat on one of her best chairs 
 for half-an-hour, he left with le petit Gueret and, in 
 the hall, dusted the seat of his trousers with his pocket- 
 handkerchief. ' What the deuce are you up to ? ' said 
 Gueret in his aristocratic way, you know. ' I ? ' 
 replied Massarin, ' I'm rubbing off the coronet.' " 
 
 Pervenche's story was greeted with delighted 
 shrieks. He complacently beamed on his admirers 
 and then, after explaining how this had for ever 
 .settled the question of coronets on the Comte de 
 Vieilleroche's paduasoy, told further stories where 
 
BATAILLE 175 
 
 figured over and above the Almanack de Gotha, 
 Claretie and his latest wrangle with Le Bargy, 
 Antoine and his new play and the lapidary mot with 
 which he, Pervenche, had demolished the edifice of 
 Rostand's literary reputation. Meanwhile, or rather 
 during the intervals of Pervenche's pyrotechnic dis- 
 play, Madame de Tras Los Rios was discovering the 
 touching mutuality of her and Madame Duvernoy's 
 acquaintances. They discussed, as was then the 
 fashion, the marriage of the Comte de Vieilleroche 
 and of Mademoiselle Stein, the Comtesse de Balazan 
 (whose horses Madame Duvernoy knew by sight), 
 Jacob Mahlstein, Officier de la Legion d'Honneur, 
 the Samaros, also the under-clothes of Her Serene 
 Highness the Princess of Lutzelbucht. Last of ail, 
 and almost accidentally, the Bernays came on the 
 tapis, for the Tras Los Rios tobacco estates were 
 largely managed by the enterprising financier. 
 
 "What! You know the Bernays!" cried the 
 Mexican; "charming people." 
 
 "Oh yes, charming, charming." 
 
 "Monsieur Bernay especially, si sceftique, si 
 Parisien, and yet so gallant. Do you know what he 
 said to me when I told him the other day that good 
 Mexicans go to Paris when they die ? Oh, you'll 
 never guess." 
 
 "No, I can't guess," said Madame Duvernoy, who 
 seemed uninterested. 
 
 " He said, ' Quite true, and when they have passed 
 through the Paripurgatory they go to Mexico ! ' " 
 
 Madame Duvernoy smiled uneasily; she did not 
 care for the turn the conversation was taking and 
 stole a look at Henri, but he seemed perfectly cool. 
 Still, it was not healthy and she tried to change the 
 
176 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 topic, but she tried in vain, for Madame de Tras Los 
 Rios was full of tropical zeal. 
 
 "And Madame Bernay ! — so amiable, so pretty, 
 always so elegant, though they do say that they spend 
 more than they make. And their daughter, Suzanne. 
 I think her lovely, don't you ? " 
 
 "Yes, she's rather pretty," said Madame Duvernoy 
 grudgingly. 
 
 "Pretty! She is beautiful, beautiful. Eyes like 
 the wing of a crow and a voice like laughing water." 
 
 "You are poetic, chere Madame," sniffed Madame 
 Duvernoy. 
 
 "Que voulez-vous? We are like that in our 
 country ; we are passionate as the Spaniards and wild 
 as the Indians. But Suzanne makes me poetic, she 
 is so beautiful. I am sure you at least agree with 
 me. Monsieur Duvernoy ? Ah, how silly, of course 
 you must, else you would not call there. ... I 
 remember seeing you come out of their house the 
 other day." 
 
 Madame Duvernoy for a moment was Roman. 
 
 "Henri," she said in a clear even voice, "I am 
 sorry, but it's getting late and we have to meet some 
 friends." 
 
 IV 
 
 "And now," said Madame Duvernoy, "perhaps you 
 will explain." 
 
 Henri stood with downcast eyes and a pouting 
 underlip before his father and mother, a prejudiced 
 tribunal ; he looked more like an angry child than like 
 the young man of the world he had, with passable 
 
BATAILLE 177 
 
 success, impersonated at the Elys^e Palace, He had 
 walked home with his mother, without exchanging a 
 word with her during the quarter of an hour which 
 elapsed between their departure from the hotel and 
 their arrival at the flat. Madame Duvernoy would 
 gladly have stamped and screamed in the Champs 
 Elys^es, but bravely kept herself in hand. They had 
 avoided each other's eyes, walked with clenched fists 
 and set mouths, for they knew that the gloves were 
 off, that the flimsy structure of pretence and ostrich- 
 like complacency had fallen away from around them. 
 Now Monsieur Duvernoy had been told, and had to 
 face facts. 
 
 "I have nothing to explain," said Henri curtly. 
 
 " Nothing to explain ? " said Monsieur Duvernoy. 
 "Hein! Monsieur is dignified; Monsieur minds his 
 own business. Understand, Henri, I forbid. . . ." 
 
 "Keep quiet, Jules," interrupted Madame Duver- 
 noy. " Now, Henri, is this true ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Oh ! Is that all you've got to say ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 There was a pause, as if the combatants were afraid 
 to close. 
 
 "Oh, indeed ! " sniffed Monsieur Duvernoy at last. 
 "This is a nice business. You go behind our backs, 
 you call on people whom you know we do not approve 
 of, you compromise us. That, I suppose, is what you 
 call filial duty." 
 
 Henri did not reply, and his mother became angrier. 
 
 "Can't you speak?" she snapped. "You owe us 
 an explanation, and we intend to have it. You called 
 on these people, presumably because you wanted to 
 see Suzanne, not for the beaux yeux of Madame 
 
178 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 Bernay, I take it. You know you did this in defi- 
 ance of our . . . our wishes. It is not for you to 
 call; it is for me. The fact that you went to their 
 dance . . ." 
 
 "I wish he never had," snarled Monsieur Duvernoy. 
 
 "Well, he did. That demands a call under 
 ordinary circumstances, but this is different. You 
 have the . . . the insolence to go there, fraudulently, 
 so to say, and sit in their drawing-room, take tea with 
 them, be seen by everybody, proclaim you're courting 
 Suzanne. It's awful, it's abominable. Whom did 
 you meet there ? " 
 
 "Nobody." 
 
 "Oh!" Madame Duvernoy seemed reassured. 
 "Well, the harm's done, anyhow, by that woman, 
 Madame de Tras Los Rios. What did Madame 
 Bernay say? Was she surprised?" 
 
 "I didn't see her." 
 
 "Were they out?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Ah . . . that's funny." Madame Duvernoy's 
 anger took another form. It was not pleasant to think 
 that her son had called, but it was almost worse if he 
 had been denied an interview; after all, he was her 
 beloved, wonderful son. "Did they say they wouldn't 
 see you ? " 
 
 "Look here, Henri," said Monsieur Duvernoy, as 
 the young man remained silent, "I demand that you 
 tell us what did happen." 
 
 Henri looked at them both — his mother's flushed 
 face and heaving bosom, his father's cynical eyes. 
 
 "I . . ." he faltered; then he decided to make a 
 clean breast. " I waited until they came back ; then I 
 followed upstairs after they had gone in, and . . ." 
 
BATAILLE 179 
 
 "And what?" 
 
 The young man looked miserably about him as they 
 fouled his dream." 
 
 "... and . . . Suzanne came to the door, just 
 for a minute." 
 
 The silence remained unbroken for an appreciable 
 period. 
 
 "Well," said Monsieur Duvernoy at last, "nice 
 goings on. My son dodges about stairs . . . sits on 
 a seat on a landing . . w kissing and cuddling like a 
 shopboy in the Bois de Boulogne. I wish it had been 
 the Bois de Boulogne," he added viciously. "She's 
 not difficult, la petite Bernay; you'd better take a cab 
 by the hour next time." 
 
 "You've no right to say that," shouted Henri, as 
 his face flamed up. "It's enough that I'm in love 
 with her, and want to marry her." 
 
 "You shall not," said Madame Duvernoy. "Once 
 and for all, Henri, take it from me we shall never 
 consent. You are not going to force our hand by 
 compromising yourself; you know our objections to 
 the match, and there's nothing to add to what we 
 have said." 
 
 "Nor to what I have said," replied Henri in a rather 
 defiant tone. 
 
 "Hein? what? What does this mean?" Madame 
 Duvernoy asked savagely. 
 
 Henri's eyes flashed, but at once his anger and 
 strength died out. 
 
 Madame Duvernoy 's heart was beating, for she 
 scented rebellion ; she decided to change her tactics. 
 
 " Voyons, Henri," she said soothingly, "do be 
 reasonable. One cannot have all one wants in 
 this world; one must make allowances, one must 
 
 N 2 
 
i8o THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 compromise; that's life, my poor child. Believe me, 
 we do all for the best." 
 
 "You're breaking my heart," said Henri, with tears 
 in his voice. 
 
 "Oh, don't be ridiculous," snarled his father. 
 "Don't make us believe you're Werther come to life 
 again." 
 
 "Really, Henri," said his mother, "you surprise 
 me. You're not reasonable. We're not trying to 
 force you to marry some one you dislike; we're only 
 asking you to be patient, to wait, to be sensible ; this 
 is all . . . very young." 
 
 "Perhaps," said Henri angrily again, for "very 
 young" had stung him. 
 
 "Look at your friends," Madame Duvernoy pur- 
 sued, "they are sensible; they make the best of life. 
 Look at la petite Stein; you don't suppose that she 
 prefers M. de Vieilleroche to all the world? And 
 Pauline Chavel ? She's not in love with Castelac." 
 
 "No," sneered Henri; "she's marrying him for his 
 title and he her for her beauty." 
 
 "Well," asked his father, "what do you want to 
 marry la petite Bernay for? For her beauty, I 
 suppose, as there's no money." 
 
 Henri looked nonplussed. Yes, it was true and 
 rather awkward ; he did want Suzanne for her beauty, 
 but how could he explain what more she meant ? — how 
 she represented peace, love, home, grace, all things 
 delicate and too subtle to be stated in words. He 
 stood under the fire of his father's sneers, of his 
 mother's threats and prayers, with numbness in his 
 brain and a horrible weakness in his body. 
 
 "Now," said Madame Duvernoy at last, "promise 
 us you will not do this again." 
 
BATAILLE i8i 
 
 The young man remained silent. Monsieur Duver- 
 noy opened his mouth to speak, but his wife signed 
 him to be quiet. 
 
 "For my sake," she said gently. 
 
 Henri looked at her : her set face, her hard, dark 
 eyes, then at his father's thin mouth and cruel gaze. 
 He turned his eyes to every corner of the dining- 
 room, seeking help in the Henri H sideboard, the 
 heavy carpet, the butler with the whiskers whom he 
 could see across the yard cleaning knives near the 
 window. He felt alone among enemies, without ideas 
 or strength. At last — 
 
 "I promise," he said in low tones. 
 
 Madame Duvernoy heaved a sigh, as if she had cast 
 off a great weight. 
 
CHAPTER THE FOURTH 
 
 ARMISTICE 
 I 
 
 And the hot, lovely days of June ebbed away. 
 Paris flaunted everywhere the heavy pink-and-white 
 pyramids of her chestnut flowers; the sunlight fell, 
 not white as in England, but golden on the dry 
 asphalt, while the little roofed barrows of the ice 
 vendors with their arsenal of glasses and their lottery 
 wheels passed in couples up and down the Champs 
 Elys^es, making for their favourite stations at the Arc 
 de Triomphe and at the Place de la Concorde. Over 
 the Tuileries and the gardens that were once the 
 Exhibition lay a haze of dry heat. All through 
 streamed the Paris procession : petty officials glad of 
 their three-roomed flats, their childless wives and their 
 two thousand francs a year ; natty bank clerks, walking 
 to their work at half-past eight, there to waste nine 
 hours on work that should be done in six; little girls 
 and beautiful statuesque mannequins bound for the 
 big shops in the Rue de la Paix, most of them awake 
 to possible adventure and keenly conscious of the value 
 of admirers. Later, the solid elements, shopkeepers 
 saving a ride in the M^tro, stout merchants and Bourse 
 touts who reluctantly walked their daily mile under 
 doctor's orders; then their wives, on their way to the 
 
 182 
 
ARMISTICE 183 
 
 Louvre, the Printemps, some to the elegant milliners' 
 and dressmakers' shops that cluster round the 
 Madeleine; and in the afternoon the lazy butterflies 
 that flutter phosphorescent over the great town of 
 petty minds and petty cares. The summer brought 
 no relief to the stolid life of the city ; it meant for the 
 dour and thrifty masses a saving in fares, the furbish- 
 ing up of old clothes, cheap vegetables instead of dear, 
 and, for the young men, facile adventures by favour 
 of the radiant sky. 
 
 Henri had not his share in the joy of life that might 
 have been his. He unconsciously liked the season of 
 effulgence : his soul was bruised, but he was young. 
 Yet he could not enjoy to the full even his progress 
 at tennis, his new pointed brown shoes and fancy 
 socks, his straw hat which, as do all his countrymen, 
 he inevitably bought too small. The cloud still 
 hung over his family relations which had now 
 changed, never more to be what they had been. He 
 was miserably conscious that never more would he 
 be his father's pride, as he had been when, after 
 the distribution of prizes at the Trocad^ro, he stag- 
 gered down the steps of the platform carrying three 
 prizes, and once, he remembered, four. As the 
 young man stood at the corner of the Avenue de 
 I'Alma, looking down its broad sweep towards the 
 emptiness which hangs over the Seine, his mind went 
 back to those great scenes, in 1895, when he was 
 fourteen. He remembered the solemn prize-giving in 
 the Trocad^ro, and at once his thoughts reverted to 
 earlier days still, when in its gardens he played 
 marbles after school, then onwards to later years when 
 he had walked there tongue-tied and enraptured by 
 the side of a young girl who served at the pastry- 
 
1 84 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 cook's on the Place. The Trocad^ro had been such a 
 centre, such a symbol, for there every" year his 
 progress had been recognised by his school, his name 
 sounded for a while by the trump of fame. He could 
 see the auditorium filled by the two thousand boys 
 and their proud, noisy parents, the platform with its 
 two long tables covered with hundreds of books, all 
 tied up in green ribbon ; behind the three rows of 
 masters in their robes, the Proviseur in the middle, 
 the Censeur in his little pulpit monotonously chaunt- 
 ing the names of the prize-winners from the Palmares. 
 What a long dull speech he had had to hear that 
 day from an Inspecteur d'Academie, and how funny 
 it had been when he had elected to receive a prize 
 from Gabachon, the drawing-master, because Gaba- 
 chon had always disliked him ! The old boy had 
 been so surprised that the congratulations he carefully 
 memorised (for others) before the ceremony had 
 suddenly blended into an incoherent mumble. Poor 
 old Gabachon ! Henri smiled and felt a little ashamed 
 of his subtle boyish act of revenge. 
 
 Those days were over. His father would no longer 
 proudly turn over the pages of those ridiculous prizes 
 and seriously advise him to read Racine out of school, 
 or, worse still, the Chroniqueurs Frangais and La 
 Machinerie au Theatre. His father hardly spoke to 
 him now, while his mother's desperate efforts to main- 
 tain friendly relations made him more uncomfortable 
 than would have open warfare. He moved among 
 them as a light vessel that has been blown out of her 
 course and finds herself surrounded by ice-floes. At 
 any moment a collision might occur, due to an in- 
 voluntary movement, and he knew that he would be 
 worsted. It was not that he was without hope, for 
 
ARMISTICE 185 
 
 Suzanne wrote to him regularly at the etude, bidding 
 him be of good cheer and vowing that she would 
 never give -him up. He took out of his breast pocket 
 her last letter and unfolded it with the religious tremor 
 which always filled him when he saw the fine sloping 
 characters. He visualised with almost sickening 
 emotion the long white hand which had written the 
 words. The letter contained no news; it merely said 
 that nothing would turn her so long as he wanted her, 
 that her parents were, so far as she knew, ignorant of 
 what was happening, but that they would not be likely 
 to object. She begged him to do his utmost to gain 
 his father's support, for she suspected that there was 
 some business bond between him and her own father ; 
 thus perhaps he might isolate and weaken his 
 mother. Then, without transition, the letter passed 
 from the practical scheming of her intelligent brain to 
 the lovelorn crying of her heart. 
 
 "You do not understand, Henri," she wrote, "for 
 no one could, how much it means for me to have you 
 in my life, to be able to hope to be loved as I love 
 you; I have wanted it so dreadfully; I have been so 
 afraid that I would be sacrificed, sold as are so many 
 of my friends, given perha:ps against my will to a man 
 I detest . . . and you have come, giving me hope. 
 If you were to die to-day, if I never saw you again, 
 that would have made my life worth living." 
 
 Henri sighed, put the letter away, wondering a 
 little why he felt so differently, why his mind was 
 focused on those dark veiled eyes, those red lips he 
 had kissed, those long hands he had held in his. He 
 struggled to express to himself his reverence for the 
 superior spirituality of the girl's love. No, he would 
 not be content with a melancholy memory if he never 
 
1 86 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 saw Suzanne again. He wanted her with more 
 precision ; he wanted her mentally, spiritually, physic- 
 ally ; he wanted to be sure she was his and would for 
 ever be his. Suddenly he felt ashamed at this level- 
 ling downwards of his passion : he was not worthy 
 of her. Then he quickly swayed back to the con- 
 viction that young girls were not as young men ; that 
 his knowledge of women, as opposed to their ignor- 
 ance of men, prevented him from looking at things as 
 they did. After all, he had been a lover. He drew 
 himself up and turned to enter the Caf6 de I'Alma 
 where he was to meet Javal. 
 
 II 
 
 The Cai6 de I'Alma was not in those days the rather 
 sumptuous and very English bar it has since become. 
 While it nowadays is a lounge of the better Leicester 
 Square type, it was then merely a caf6, rather large, 
 rather comfortable, but a caf6 still with a wooden floor 
 on which fine yellow sand was sprinkled in curious 
 patterns, a caf6 with its big white metal globe for the 
 waiters' napkins, daily papers in clamp holders 
 and illustrated weeklies in black glazed covers. 
 In fact, instead of being merely a place where you 
 drank the stirrup cup, it was cheerful and noisy; 
 there were groups of stout elderly men who wrangled 
 and shouted as they played manille and piquet, even 
 sometimes backgammon. Then they drank absinthe 
 orgeat, grenadine, bocks of good French beer, " Max^- 
 ville" or "Com6te"; not whisky and Schweppes, 
 and stout and pale ale, and Martinis, Manhattans, 
 mint juleps, those Anglo-American atrocities. Just 
 
ARMISTICE 187 
 
 beside the door, under the awning, Javal sat before 
 a vermouth-citron, lazily viewing the brown and gold 
 base of the Hotel d'Albe. 
 
 "Oh, here you are," said the little man, as Henri 
 sat down by his side. "I thought you weren't coming. 
 Ca va bien?" 
 
 "Yes, thanks, and you? " 
 
 Javal shook his head mournfully. No, he was far 
 from well : dyspepsia, acidity, gout, rheumatism, 
 incipient it is true, but there. Oh, he would halve to 
 be careful, take Tisane des Shakers. 
 
 "Oh, you're ridiculous with your diseases," said 
 Henri. "If I was like you I'd put a bullet through 
 my head. It's hypochondria; there's nothing the 
 matter with you." 
 
 Javal was much insulted and painstakingly enumer- 
 ated his symptoms. He wanted sympathy, but he 
 could do without it; nothing at any rate could stop 
 his valetudinarian chronicles except those of another 
 invalid, for his was a great heart open to everybody's 
 pains if not to their joys. 
 
 "Well, I have my troubles too," said Henri, who 
 knew his peculiarities. "One might think when one 
 hears you talk that you believe you've got a monopoly 
 of suffering." 
 
 "Anything the matter with you?" said Javal 
 greedily. 
 
 "Yes; well, nothing in the way you mean. My 
 troubles are mental." 
 
 "I have seen signs of incipient insanity," said Javal 
 quite seriously; "that marriage idea of yours, for 
 instance. Of course that's all over." 
 
 "It's not. I've made up my mind." 
 
 JaVal looked at him sorrowfully. " Tu es idiot, man 
 
1 88 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 pauvre vieux," he remarked at last; "of course she's 
 very pretty, and all that, and " 
 
 " How do you know ? Do you know her ? " Henri's 
 rosy cheeks became red. 
 
 "Of course I do," said Javal with a short laugh; 
 "who doesn't after the Bernays' ball ? Why, any one 
 but a fool could have seen it in the way you held 
 her, looked into her eyes ! Mind you, I understand 
 you. La petite Bernay, well she's more than pretty, 
 and a nice girl too." 
 
 "I'm glad you say that," Henri acknowledged; 
 " then why do you laugh at me ? " 
 
 Javal shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "My dear fellow, how can you ask? Didn't we 
 thrash all that out at the R.C.F. two months ago? 
 You yourself said she only had fifty thousand francs. 
 It can't be done, it simply can't." 
 
 The old wrangle began again, interminable and 
 ever revolving round the value of money, the all- 
 importance of gaining it, keeping it, preserving its 
 integrity by limiting families. Still Henri gained 
 ground, compelled his friend to own that "if one 
 really loved one's wife it was better than if one did 
 not." 
 
 "But suppose you do stick to it," said Javal at 
 length, "what will your people say? " 
 
 Henri was embarrassed, called Adolphe and ordered 
 another Dubonnet. "Oh," he said at length, " I don't 
 know. They don't like it, of course; still, when they 
 see I'm in earnest " 
 
 "Oh, so they are against it?" 
 
 "Yes; well, I suppose they are against it. Matnan 
 thinks I ought to get at least two hundred thousand 
 francs dot." 
 
ARMISTICE 189 
 
 "Well, there's no chance of Bernay putting it up," 
 said Javal, "unless you'll take it in shares . . . and 
 you'd better not." 
 
 "Oh, I wouldn't mind." 
 
 " Idealist ! Alwa;y unpractical ce cher Duvernoy^ 
 But, my dear fellow, your ideals, all that sort of thing, 
 you'd better take them to a Miss Anglaise, they're no 
 use here. You can have your passions if you want to, 
 but marriage is another thing." 
 
 " What do you. mean ? " Henri asked angrily. 
 
 "You let her marry somebody else, and then . . . 
 well, you're no fool, are you ? " 
 
 Henri looked at him with an air of amazement ; he 
 had a difficulty in speaking, so atrocious seemed the 
 suggestion. Javal felt he had said too much. 
 
 "Voyons," he said, "you don't mean to say that 
 you've never loved a woman who . . . well, say a 
 widow." 
 
 "What's that got to do with it? " 
 
 "It means that these funny idealistic ideas of 
 yours are all moonshine. Love and life are not the 
 same thing ; they are in watertight compartments and 
 better thus, for, believe me, passion is a disturbing 
 element when it comes to children's boots, weekly 
 bills, and hats for the lady whom you worship." 
 
 Henri would have liked to change the conversation, 
 for it soiled and bedraggled his dream ; but it had a 
 horrid fascination for him, and he had to go on. 
 
 "You don't understand," he replied. "It's not only 
 passion with me ; I adore her ; I adore the clothes she 
 wears, the ground she treads ; I adore her shadow, I 
 adore the thought of her. I haven't looked at another 
 woman since I saw her." 
 
 "Well, well," mused Javal, "it's very extraordinary. 
 
I90 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 Do you actually mean to say that you've been faithful 
 to her for two months ? " 
 
 "I have," said Henri, with the pride of a martyr. 
 
 "But why, why? It's unaccountable. Have you 
 any scruples ? " 
 
 "No — that is, a kind of scruple. It isn't a nice 
 idea." 
 
 "But surely you know you're exceptional ? I'm not 
 talking of after marriage — that's another matter — but 
 before you're married — that's quite another matter." 
 
 Henri vainly struggled to explain that the idea Javal 
 put forward disgusted him. He hardly knew how to 
 put into words something so opposed to French 
 traditions as faithfulness to an idea. For a time they 
 argued "in the air," unable to understand one another, 
 for Henri's idealism was muddled, while Javal, though 
 more articulate, could not grasp the idea that his friend 
 did not establish the national distinction between pre- 
 nuptial and post-nuptial looseness. Javal was in no 
 sense an immoralist; in fact, he was conventional 
 according to his conventions. He saw no reason why 
 a man should turn away from women, their pursuit 
 and conquest, because he loved another ; for him love 
 was sex. 
 
 "You talk like a hero of D'Annunzio's," he said at 
 length, "and they don't all marry." 
 
 "Perhaps I do," said Henri, nettled at this sugges- 
 tion of high-falutin, "but it's no use talking. Marry 
 her I will if I wait for ever." 
 
 "And she? Will she wait? " 
 
 "For ever," said Henri very softly. 
 
 Javal looked at him with an air of pity, then sighed 
 as if he envied him a little and was sorry. Still he 
 tried to reason with him. 
 
ARMISTICE 191 
 
 "You know, you're not the only one. I,, for 
 instance — there's a girl I rather like . . ." 
 
 "Yes— Letitia," said Henri quickly. 
 
 " How do you know ? " asked his friend, genuinely 
 surprised. 
 
 "Oh, I suppose I'm sensitive just now. Besides, I 
 feel she likes you." 
 
 "Do you think so?" said Javal rather breathlessly. 
 
 Henri began to laugh, while his friend nervously 
 fingered his spoon. 
 
 "Oh, oh," he gasped at last, "and then you go 
 preaching at me. You're just the same." 
 
 "One minute," said Javal coldly; "did I say I 
 wanted to marry her ? " 
 
 "No, but " 
 
 "There is no but. Letitia: de Morenda has not got 
 a sou, and I don't expect her mother will leave her 
 anything. I know." 
 
 "Oh, you've inquired? Tres amoureux!" 
 
 "Nothing to do with love. Of course I inquired; 
 it stands to reason I can't marry on three thousand 
 francs a year." 
 
 "Oh yes, you can if you're in love." 
 
 "Well, why don't you do it?" asked Javal, sud- 
 denly turning on Henri. 
 
 Henri was staggered for an instant. He had not 
 thought of that. "Oh," he said at length, "you're 
 an orphan, you can do what you like. I've got my 
 parents to consider." 
 
 "Tres amoureux," Javal sneered in his turn. "But 
 you're right and so am I. Letitia won't find a 
 husband." 
 
 "Well, what's the good of that to you?" 
 
 "Oh, you never know," said Javal, "you never 
 
192 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 know. She's a fine girl," he aHded inconsequently. 
 "Who knows, she may not be difficile." 
 
 "Javal," said Henri slowly, "you are an old friend, 
 but you are really rather degoutant. You speak of 
 women as if they were cattle, made for your pleasure. 
 You think that nothing matters but money, position ; 
 you seem to think that love, the domestic hearth, 
 children and happiness are decided by the fact that 
 you can afford a first floor front flat instead of a fifth 
 floor on the yard. What's more, you think there's 
 so little to respect in women that you're quite willing 
 to ruin a girl you'd be willing to marry if only she 
 had some money. Frankly, Javal, tu es degoHtant." 
 
 " Tu es idiot," said Javal. 
 
 Thereupon they left the caf^. There was no struggle 
 as to who should stand the drinks ; each paid for his 
 own and separately tipped Adolphe. 
 
 Ill 
 
 On the fourteenth of July Henri heard that he had 
 an ally. It was not a very strong or valuable ally, 
 but a minority of two in a group of six is not particular 
 as to recruits. The ally was Madame Bernay. He 
 heard it from her own lips, and suddenly discovered 
 that the faded woman was pretty and sweet as her 
 own daughter. He did not, when he set out in the 
 morning of the Fete Nationale, know what the day 
 would bring him. Since daybreak the big guns of 
 the Mont Valerian and of Vincennes had been slowly 
 booming, thus imparting to Paris a curious military 
 air and fostering the outbreak of semi-obsidional fever 
 required by the celebration. While the Rue de 
 
ARMISTICE 193 
 
 Marignan was having its coffee and rolls, long regi- 
 ments had marched up the Champs Elys^es in full 
 kit, sweating and audibly cursing the Revolution 
 and its heritage, while escadrons of dragoons and 
 cuirassiers passed them at a trot and batteries rumbled 
 by in a cloud of metallic noises. A martial air 
 remained, made up of great bunches of flags over 
 the porches of mairies and other public edifices, small 
 shows of bunting at loyal windows and the swagger 
 of such soldiery as was on duty in the town. 
 
 Henri had walked abroad feeling gay and rather 
 light. The Fourteenth of July had always meant 
 something to him from boyhood upwards, if no more 
 than a holiday and hot weather. He could not 
 remember a wet or cold Fourteenth, and instinctively 
 knew that I'Etre Supreme, as the Assemblee Consti- 
 tutionnelle chose to call Him, would never allow rain 
 to spoil the memories of that hot day, a century ago, 
 when the people had taken the Bastille. The memory 
 made his generous young soul glow as muddled 
 memories of Danton, Robespierre and fiery speeches, 
 Desmoulins and gentlemanly Girondinism, rose to 
 his mind. He honestly loved the Republic and closed 
 his eyes to her failings ; he would never face the fact 
 that though '93 had ejected the Bourbon princes it 
 had not provided against the Banque Galgenstein. 
 He took " Marianne " very seriously, passed over the 
 intrigues of electoral committees, the sale of. orders, 
 open or clandestine, the general prevalence of cor- 
 ruption in the civil service, the clerical scandals ; he 
 saw the Republic very much as Roty has drawn her 
 on the coins, young and lithe, sowing the good seed 
 with her lovely swaying arm over the broad French 
 fields. 
 
194 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 He passed the morning mainly in the Bois de 
 Boulogne watching the troops go by and Paris pre- 
 paring to make holiday. Over his head was the flat 
 sky, which is so deep in July that it seems purple 
 rather than blue, while not a cloud dares defile it. 
 The trees were heavy with leaf and shed heavy scents 
 of yellow acacia bloom, of rich ripe leaf, of fat resin- 
 ous bark. Away from the road, where motor-cars 
 perpetually buzzed past him in a medley of sound, 
 where cyclists passed in thick groups behind their 
 club leaders, tooting their horns and sometimes 
 shaking enormous cow-bells, the artisans of Paris 
 were preparing to picnic. They came in families, 
 mostly adult, for the artisan who cares to afford the 
 penny-halfpenny fare in the M^tro has but few 
 children. 
 
 One such family drew his attention. It seemed to 
 be made up of a father in a frock-coat, grey trousers, 
 yellow boots and a straw hat, of a mother, very 
 capable-looking, in a tight white blouse which 
 moulded her big bust, of two children, pale little 
 precocious things whose bare legs seemed too white ; 
 with them were two men and a young woman, all of 
 them inclined to laugh and to shout, an obvious horse- 
 faced mother-in-law, also probably a maiden aunt 
 and some elderly cousin with a grey moustache and 
 the faded ribbon of the medaille militaire in his 
 button-hole; above all and dominating them the old 
 grandmother with an imperious air, who seemed to 
 drag everywhere a bulging string bag. Some 
 children who apparently belonged to nobody followed 
 with hoops and tops, all very self-possessed. 
 
 The group passed through the trees shouting and 
 wrangling. The two children quarrelled and were 
 
ARMISTICE 195 
 
 parted with much screaming of "Finis done Mathilde," 
 and "Louis, tais-toi, vilain." 
 
 Henri watched them as he had never watched a 
 family. It all seemed so spontaneous and easy, so 
 different from the aged rigidity of his own home. It 
 made him envious to see the big party settle at last 
 near a thicket, ten yards from another family, unpack 
 the string bag and the baskets, set out on a clean 
 tablecloth the big uncut loaf, the butter (which had 
 cruelly suffered on the way), the savoury sausages 
 and the piece of cold roast beef (rosbif) from the 
 charcuterie. It was a fine spread and a pretty, the 
 white cloth on the grass, the red meat, the big Brie 
 cheese flowing over the plate and the bottles of red 
 wine. As he left the men were burying the bottles 
 in earth hurriedly dug up to keep them cool. The 
 laughter, the screaming of the children, the loud cries 
 of "Mathilde," the shrill voice of the old grand- 
 mother, all pursued and haunted him until at last he 
 discovered why he was stirred ; he found that he was 
 thinking of Suzanne, of a family he would found, 
 of such joys as these, easy and graceful. 
 
 It was in a mood of depression that he faced the 
 ordeal of lunch. Monsieur Duvernoy was in a par- 
 ticularly vicious mood, for his hatred of the Republic 
 came to a head on days such as these. 
 
 " Going to the review ? " he sniffed. 
 
 Henri hesitated, then compromised. "I'll go and 
 see them come back in the Champs Elys^es ; it's such 
 a fine day." 
 
 "Ahem! It's not much you'll see in the Champs 
 Elys^es except the President. A fine specimen, your 
 Loubet ! he'd have done better to stick to his nougat." 
 
 "He doesn't make nougat," said Henri, "every- 
 o 2 
 
196 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 body doesn't make nougat in Mont^limar. He's a 
 brave homme, le pere Loubet." 
 
 "Oh, don't talk of Loubet," interrupted Madame 
 Duvernoy, "you know quite well your father doesn't 
 like him." 
 
 "Well," said Henri, "it's not my fault if papa is a 
 Clerical." 
 
 "Who said I was a Clerical?" stormed Monsieur 
 Duvernoy, " I believe in liberty of conscience, which 
 is more than your dirty band of Jews and Protestants 
 and Freemasons do. You're a lot of tyrants and 
 inquisitors, that's all, and call yourselves Repub- 
 licans. King People indeed ! so much for etymology 
 . . . but I forget, the young generation doesn't learn 
 Latin." 
 
 "Well, it learns German," said Madame Duvernoy 
 aggressively, for nobody, not even her husband, was 
 allowed to attack her son's education. 
 
 "Convenient for traitors," her husband grumbled, 
 "to-day's the day of the sans-patrie. . , . What we 
 want's another Christiani to demoUsh Loubet's head 
 instead of his hat. Fortunately his term '11 be over 
 next year." 
 
 "You won't get a better one," snarled Henri. 
 
 The wrangle continued throughout lunch. It was 
 personal all through, for the old man could not for- 
 give his son his Radical opinions and his incipient 
 if formless Socialism. He saw no generosity but 
 mere arrogant stupidity in the young man's yearning 
 for some undefined social justice. His son, on the 
 other hand, could not repress the contempt he felt for 
 his father's attitude. He could not understand how 
 he could set himself up as a friend of the clergy when 
 he never attended Mass, for he was too direct to 
 
ARMISTICE 197 
 
 accept that a man should defend the priests given 
 that he was likely to enter a church but five times 
 in his life : for his christening, premiere communion 
 and rtiarriage, and for his son's christening; he had 
 only one more visit to pay, when he died, and this, 
 the ordinary routine of French men, was repugnant 
 to his agnostic son. After lunch the wrangle became 
 more bitter still, for Monsieur Duvernoy's Legion 
 d'Honneur was discussed. Henri inquired sardonic- 
 ally whether it had been given him by Philippe 
 d'Orl^ans or Prince Victor, upon which his father flew 
 into a rage, which was almost inarticulate because 
 he had to explain that he owed it to a Radical 
 senateur. Madame Duvernoy was glad to see Henri 
 go out immediately after he had swallowed his coffee. 
 The afternoon passed agreeably enough among the 
 throngs that slowly filed up the glaring white pave- 
 ment of the Champs Elys^ss. At four Henri found 
 himself among the crowd in front of the Caf^ de 
 I'Alma. The traffic was streaming back from Long- 
 champ now, in great serried masses of fiacres laden 
 with families, long motor-cars and bold cyclists. 
 The crowd pressed on him, chattered, quarrelled, while 
 hawkers threaded their way through, selling handker- 
 chiefs bearing patriotic designs and little fans known 
 as petits vents du Nord. At last he heard shouting 
 in the distance.; it drew nearer, nearer still. Vive 
 Loubet! Vive la Republique, shouted the mass. 
 Then came two cuirassiers at a gallop, riding abreast, 
 with revolvers in their gauntleted hands ; thirty yards 
 behind those modern lictors the President's guard, 
 some forty cuirassiers in their gay breastplates and 
 helmets and their bugler with his fine red horsehair 
 streamer; then the President, in his simple carriage. 
 
198 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 with the Generalissime, the Governor of Paris and 
 the Minister for War. The kindly face of the old 
 President was smiling as he regularly raised his hat 
 while the crowd again shouted his name; a few 
 whistles of hatred boldly blended with the shouts. 
 Henri had lustily shouted Vive Loubet! Vive la 
 Republique, with the rest; now the last cuirassiers 
 were galloping by. Suddenly he heard his name 
 called. He turned and could have cried out with 
 delight, for a yard behind him, Suzanne stood on a 
 chair. He leapt forward and seized her hand. 
 Neither said a word, but just looked into each other's 
 eyes. 
 
 "Don't you recognise me, Monsieur Duvernoy?" 
 said a gentle voice. 
 
 Henri hastily looked away from Suzanne's face and 
 blushed as he shook hands with Madame Bernay. 
 
 "Oh yes, yes," he muttered, "but I was so 
 surprised." 
 
 "Agreeably?" asked Suzanne in a quizzical tone. 
 Henri looked at her reproachfully. She seemed to 
 him like a goddess on her pedestal ; no one could have 
 thought it was a fifty centimes hired chair. 
 
 "Help me," she said demurely. And as she ex- 
 tended her bare hand and Henri took it, both were 
 accomplices in delaying for some seconds the moment 
 when their hands must part. 
 
 "Isn't it fine?" asked Madame Bernay, still 
 smiling, though she had understood. 
 
 "Oh, beautiful, beautiful." Henri felt rather in- 
 toxicated. 
 
 "I heard you shout Vive la Republique!" said 
 Madame Bernay. "Young men of the present day 
 are not so enthusiastic as a rule." 
 
ARMISTICE 199 
 
 "Yes," said Henri, quite seriously, "I did shout." 
 He looked at the two women with open blue eyes 
 without at all realising that he was lovable if a little 
 childish. Then he had to submit to be questioned. 
 
 " And, Madame voire mere ? Is she well ? " 
 
 "Yes, Madame, very well, thank you." 
 
 "And Monsieur Duvernoy? Always in good 
 health?" 
 
 "Yes. Thanks. He's very well. And, Monsieur 
 Bernay ? " 
 
 "Very busy, very. Ah, Monsieur Duvernoy, you 
 are lucky to be a lawyer. No anxieties, no hurry." 
 
 Henri assented, for he did not want to talk about 
 health or business. He wanted to look at Suzanne, 
 to stand very near her, so that the vast crowd, as it 
 swirled about them, could press them close together. 
 Suzanne, with unconscious complicity, favoured his 
 design while her mother talked steadily in her soft 
 voice ; the girl looked up shyly from time to time and 
 met with a half-smile the imploring and possessive 
 eyes of her lover. They were very deeply stirred, 
 those two, as they awkwardly stood side by side, 
 thrilled whenever their hands touched. 
 
 Still Madame Bernay talked, of the lovely weather, 
 of the hope she nursed of soon calling on Madame 
 Duvernoy, of Monsieur Bernay's overworked condi- 
 tion. At last Suzanne forced herself to speak. 
 
 "We are going away soon," she said, "we are 
 going to Pourville." 
 
 "You . . . you are going to Pourville!" Henri 
 faltered, "but then . . . we . . ." 
 
 "Oh, nothing is settled, nothing is settled. 
 Suzanne, you ought not to have said that." 
 
 "Maman," Suzanne whispered hurriedly, "it 
 
200 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 doesn't matter. I know, and you know that . . . 
 that Monsieur Duvernoy will be at Dieppe . . . and 
 of course we mustn't talk about it because . . ." 
 
 "Oh, there's no reason why we shouldn't," said 
 the mother lightly, " still, you understand . . . people 
 might think . . ." 
 
 Henri listened blankly to the quick interchange of 
 sentences. Then he began to understand that he was 
 being told something, that they were letting him into 
 a plot. It was delicious. 
 
 "Oh," he blurted out, "oh, of course, Madame, I 
 understand. ... I shan't say anything. . . . You 
 see, my parents, they . . ." He looked round him 
 desperately, afraid to wound and yet seeking expres- 
 sion; he wanted so badly to be frank. The crowd 
 streamed round them careless and absorbed, dragging 
 chairs, screaming to cover the din ; the ceaseless flow 
 of conveyances went by under the heavy blue sky. 
 A rigid look came over Suzanne's face. 
 
 "Maman, please speak to him; please." 
 
 Madame Bernay turned on the young man her 
 sad eyes and smiled in her tired way between the fine 
 wrinkles near her mouth. 
 
 "Monsieur Duvernoy," she said, "I like you. I 
 know what you want, for Suzanne has told me. She 
 tells me that your parents . . . well, that your 
 parents want to think the idea over. All I can say 
 is that I shall not object." 
 
 Henri suddenly felt in his a hot little trembling 
 hand. 
 
 "My husband," Madame Bernay pursued, as if she 
 did not see, "knows nothing", but I do not think he 
 would refuse Suzanne anything. He has never done 
 so yet." 
 
ARMISTICE 20 1 
 
 And then, as if the crowd played a queer sacra- 
 mental part in the betrothal, a swirl of holiday-makers 
 encircled the group, pressed against them and threw 
 into the young man's arms the willing form of the 
 girl whose hand he held in his. 
 
 IV 
 
 Still the guns were booming from the distant 
 Champ de Mars and from the Mont-Val^rien as Henri 
 idly turned into the little place near the end of the 
 Rue Marbeuf. In honour of the "14 Juillet" the 
 pork-butcher had suspended tricolour streamers over 
 his shop front; from many windows depended flags, 
 whilst the melancholy dog who once was white tried 
 by rolling in the dust to remove the blue dye from 
 his haunches and the scarlet from his head : his ostler 
 master had sacrificed him on the altar of patriotism. 
 Already some twenty couples were dancing, while a 
 hundred more stood in a circle watching them and 
 laughing as they waltzed to the tune of the two 
 municipal fiddlers and the clarionet volunteer. 
 
 The musicians sat on a little platform draped with 
 flags, just in front of the little caf6; once a year 
 they were requisitioned by the Conseil Municipal to 
 incite the citizens to dance in the open air under the 
 eye, annually benevolent, of the two sergents de ville 
 who are compelled by tradition to allow this outrage 
 on public order. It was warm and the air was silent 
 in spite of the laughter and the scrape of the two- 
 score feet on the wood pavement. The couples com- 
 prised mainly menservants, big fellows with coal- 
 black whiskers, and neat maids in black with the 
 
202 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 ugly faces, bright eyes and graceful figures of French 
 girls; mixed in with them a few workgirls, seam- 
 stresses ; some shopkeepers who often stopped to mop 
 their bald heads as they danced with their good- 
 tempered square wives; a neat clerk or two in very 
 tight dark clothes and very high collars; a soldier, 
 perspiring horribly in his thick black veste and heavy 
 white-gaitered shoes. 
 
 Henri watched them good-humouredly, watched too 
 the reflection on the black star-spangled sky of the 
 red fires of the Eiffel Tower ; he could hear, together 
 with the distant guns, the occasional sharp crack of a 
 rocket, for fireworks were being let off far and near : 
 in the Champ de Mars, on the Buttes Chaumont, in 
 the Tuileries gardens. The dancers grew in numbers, 
 as couple after couple gained courage and entered the 
 ring. Soon, as the municipal fiddlers persistently 
 fiddled, the crowd became excited, laughed hysteric- 
 ally, found fun in gentle Latin rowdiness. During a 
 break, granted the musicians so that they might drink 
 abundantly from the litres of red wine placed beside 
 their chairs, Henri found himself in a group and 
 talking to a little dark girl. 
 
 "You don't dance. Monsieur?" she asked. 
 
 "Like a bear, Mademoiselle," said Henri easily. 
 He liked her round dark face, her tight white blouse 
 with its well-boned neck. "Still, if you will tame the 
 animal . . ." 
 
 "With pleasure. Monsieur," she said, with false 
 demureness. "As soon as the music begins. I love 
 dancing, don't you? Do you ever go to balls? I 
 do often, to the Bal Wagram. Do you know it?" 
 
 "Oh yes, I know it well," said Henri, who knew 
 the Bal Wagram as being popular among the aris- 
 
ARMISTICE 203 
 
 tocracy of the Champs Elys^es servants' halls. "I 
 often go," he plunged. 
 
 "Tiens, I've never seen you." 
 
 "You might forget," said Henri archly. 
 
 "Perhaps," said the coquette. But she did not 
 mean it ; she was sure she could not forget the young 
 man's large blue eyes and his little red moustache. 
 And he was so fine and big. "We must dance there. 
 Ah, la musique ! " 
 
 The untiring fiddlers struck up and Henri whirled 
 into the dance with his little partner. She was frank, 
 agreeable, and he liked to feel in his hand her short 
 plump fingers. At times she looked up at him and 
 smiled archly. 
 
 "I'm at the pastrycook's in the Rue Pierre 
 Charron," she confided to him. "My name is Ad^le. 
 And you ? " 
 
 "Oh. I . . . Leopold," Henri lied without know- 
 ing why. 
 
 "That's nice. Monsieur Ltepold," said Ad^le. And 
 as the laughing eyes looked up at him he felt ashamed 
 of his lie, for the girl chattered quite innocently. 
 Her work was very hard, she said, for she was at the 
 patisserie every day from eight in the morning to nine 
 in the evening and was paid two francs a day. 
 
 "You must be very unhappy," said Henri, as they 
 danced. 
 
 " I ? Oh no ; I live at home. Papa is au ministere 
 and maman mends lace. So I can put three francs 
 fifty in the savings bank every week." 
 
 "You'll have quite a dot to marry on when you're 
 grown up," said Henri. 
 
 "I am grown up," said the girl indignantly. "I'm 
 twenty, but I don't want to marry. Marriage is a 
 
204 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 blague;^ men are all the same, like papa: he's fifty 
 and maman knows he deceives her." 
 
 "But it's awful," said Henri, genuinely perturbed. 
 They were standing in the crowd now, for the waltz 
 was over. "I'd never deceive my wife." 
 
 "Oh, that's what you all say," replied Ad^le, "but 
 you're all the same. Any petticoat turns your heads. 
 But it's all the same; if you don't care it doesn't 
 matter, and if a man runs after the girls it's better 
 than if he drinks. A man must do something, pas?" 
 
 Henri was shocked at this precocious cynicism and, 
 when again he danced with Ad^le, tried to convert her 
 to the idealistic attitude. But the Paris gutter 
 philosophy was too much for him : Ad^le knew quite 
 well that men deceived; that women lied, that "that 
 sort of thing was all right in novels, but that wasn't 
 life," and that when all was said and done there was 
 nothing like putting away three francs fifty every 
 week. Like Javal, like Madame Duvernoy, like 
 France, she knew that cash was the thing. 
 
 Henri danced with another partner, a large jolly 
 woman, probably a cook, vaguely feeling that he con- 
 descended, but so inwardly joyful that he liked the 
 sensation. Then he returned to Ad^le, who quite 
 openly rested her head against his shoulder as they 
 danced. At last he drew her apart, suggested she 
 must be thirsty and took her to the caf6 opposite the 
 Pont de I' Alma to drink some grenadine. He was 
 absurdly happy; he longed to tell the girl about 
 Suzanne, but he had to laugh instead when she made 
 faces at him as she sucked the syrup through a straw. 
 Besides, it struck him that it would almost be 
 treachery. Even later, when he took her back to 
 1 "Spoof;" "tommy rot." 
 
ARMISTICE 205 
 
 Chaillot, he felt awkward, afraid that a friend would 
 see him, cold. 
 
 "You mustn't come any further," said Ad^le sud- 
 denly. She stopped inside a porch, looked up and 
 down the silent street. 
 
 "Good-bye," said Henri quickly, "I . . . thanks 
 so much . . . we must meet again. . . . Shall I come 
 and buy cakes ? " 
 
 "Yes, do," said the girl; "good-bye." 
 
 Henri held out his hand. The girl took it, held it 
 and smiled up at him with a pout. She looked so 
 appealing and provoking that he threw his arm round 
 her firm shoulders and tried to kiss her lips. But she 
 laughed and eluded him. 
 
 "No, no," she said, "on the cheek. Monsieur, on 
 the cheek, we're not yet fiances." 
 
 And Henri, humouring the curious mixture of 
 facility and reserve characteristic of French girls, 
 pressed his lips to the soft warm cheek. But the 
 memory of that innocent caress weighed so heavily on 
 his conscience that he told Javal some days later. 
 Javal was amazed, for Henri's thin-skinned loyalty 
 was beyond his type of mind, ended by calling him 
 an idiot and by telling him that he couldn't be a 
 man if, after beginning so well, he stopped until he 
 had nothing left to desire. 
 
 But Henri never went to buy those cakes. 
 
CHAPTER THE FIFTH 
 
 PARIS-SUR-MER 
 I 
 
 Devonshire is Devonshire; the coast of Maine is 
 itself; but Dieppe is not Dieppe — it is Paris. It is 
 more Paris than Brighton is London, however much 
 Brighton's bandstands, parades, hotels and public- 
 houses may compete with Earl's Court and the 
 Edgware Road. For Brighton seems to forget itself, 
 to blossom out into girls with wet hair and men with 
 yachting caps and telescopes (they cannot see through 
 the telescopes), but Dieppe does none of these things. 
 The dominant English have come and have imposed 
 upon the reluctant little city afternoon tea, golf and 
 Doultoniana; but even they have failed to get the 
 starch out of it, for Dieppe has an air. Perhaps the 
 salt west wind blows at times along its terrace without 
 imperilling a poised Paris hat; possibly, even, there 
 are wrecks; but of these things the world knows 
 nothing, for there is no Dieppe excepting from June 
 to October. After October it ceases to be a town, and 
 becomes a place where they catch fish. During the 
 season it is hard to believe that the inhabitants do 
 anything so primitive. 
 
 The topography of Dieppe is singularly undistin- 
 guished. It lies between two masses of cliff on a plain 
 where the little Scie pleasantly meanders through 
 
PARIS-SUR-MER 207 
 
 gardens and drains and under many bridges — in fact, 
 anywhere except through real fields. It has a harbour 
 which pretends to be a fishing centre and succeeds 
 merely in being a junction; it has a fish market, golf 
 links, a race-course; it has two churches, and smells 
 very bad. But that is hardly Dieppe, it is merely the 
 background of the real Dieppe, the Dieppe we begin 
 to suspect as we walk along the Grand Rue and count 
 the innumerable pastrycooks ; it is quite clear that the 
 background has no need of the pastrycooks, nor of 
 the booksellers,, the hosiers and restaurants. Those 
 things pertain to the front, the atmosphere of which 
 becomes all the more evident as, leaving the Grande 
 Rue behind, you make for the sea : the town bursts 
 into apartments, into the solemnity of houses, lastly 
 into hotels. 
 
 From east to west the hotels stand in a serried row, 
 occupying almost every inch of space between the 
 western cliff, upon which stands the castle, and the 
 eastern, where is the harbour. These natural con- 
 ditions are, no doubt, responsible for the fact that 
 there is but half-a-mile or so of hotels. They stand, 
 new and arrogant, all white stone and glazed winter 
 gardens, with wonderful trim front gardens ("tiled"), 
 and flagstaffs, and liveried porters, and motors and 
 all that goes with motors. Indeed they are hotels; 
 there is nothing to show that they have not been 
 transported as they stood from Folkestone Leas or 
 the Ostend digue. In front of the masters of them all, 
 on the west, lies the heart of real Dieppe, the Casino. 
 
 Few towns on the French coast are without their 
 Casino, a place which, however humbly built of planks 
 or corrugated iron, affords the Parisian a room in 
 which to dance and another in which to lose a franc 
 
2o8 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 on the petits chevaux. But the Dieppe Casino is of 
 quite another order; it is an organisation. It is 
 known that it never sleeps, that it will feed anybody 
 at any time, allow them to write their letters and post 
 them within its boundaries, to play tennis and croquet, 
 to read papers in seven languages, to attend concerts, 
 dances, plays, and punch-and-judy shows, to take 
 baths in which the sea has no place, to play petits 
 chevaux and baccarat. Possibly you may live there 
 if you be in high favour with the real Dieppe, in which 
 case you need no longer be concerned with the rest 
 of France : until October comes and they put Dieppe 
 into holland covers the Casino will look after you. 
 
 The Casino is wonderfully Turkish, with its cupola 
 and its minarets, and it stands incongruously in 
 gardens which are wholly anglais (which is the French 
 translation of Dutch), except where they merge into 
 bushes, well nooked and provided with little chairs 
 for the English misses to flirt on after their cavaliers 
 have blinded with a franc the sedulous watchman. In 
 front of it lies the Terrasse, the heart, the arcanum 
 of Dieppe. Seen in the early morning, the Terrasse 
 is unimposing, for it appears as a five-hundred-foot 
 strip of asphalt, lying between the Casino and the 
 sea ; it is raised some three yards over the shingle and 
 walled off, so that the vulgar may not defile it. Below 
 are the bathing-boxes, a tumbled crowd of them, while 
 in front lies the estacade, a little wooden pier designed 
 for bathing and not for long distance walks. But as 
 the morning wanes the Terrasse begins to be. First 
 come the English, with their national paraphernalia 
 of golf clubs, rackets and balls, tall young men, 
 mostly clean shaven, and linen-clad girls, with towels 
 and Tauchnitzes. They pace the Terrasse uncomfort- 
 
PARIS-SUR-MER 209 
 
 ably, for they despise the little cane chairs, and they 
 are worried by the Frenchness as exemplified by the 
 coal-haired waiters ; at times they stop to sneer at the 
 flagstaff where no flag floats, which means "no 
 bathing," for the sea is choppy. England is hanged 
 if it's going to stand that ! Later, the French : Mon- 
 sieur in blue serge coat and white ducks — very tight 
 white ducks, and a straw hat that might have fitted 
 him when he was fourteen; Madame, tres chic, all 
 steel corset and long white shoe; sometimes Marcel 
 and sometimes Jeanne, seldom both, always very con- 
 scious of their striped linen suits or stiff frills, all 
 bare leg and decorum. Later still, the elite, a cosmo- 
 politan group which revolves round a lady who paints 
 flowers well and makes useful acquaintances divinely. 
 That is not a noticeable group : it is so cosmopolitan 
 that it has to average and pretend to be English; it 
 numbers a Portuguese painter, an Italian architect, 
 the sister of a great English artist, an English actress 
 who looks very French, a French art critic and his 
 lovely daughter, together with another cadaverous 
 critic, some Frenchmen who hang on and some Jews 
 who own motors. Slowly, as the elite draws apart 
 and forms small groups at the caf6 or on the abomi- 
 nable tennis court, the Terrasse becomes crowded with 
 Paris-on-Sea : smart women, whose complexions will 
 not let them bathe; natty youths who take off their 
 hats with care, lest the wind should destroy their 
 partings. There is bowing and there is meeting, 
 there is walking up and down for ever on the asphalt 
 strip, while in the bandstand a small but lusty group 
 thunders in turn Wagner and Messager. The hats 
 are perfect, hands are gloved, faces veiled; as the 
 morning passes, the English girls slink by, a little 
 
2IO THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 ashamed of their flying strands of hair, their unlaced 
 shoes and unbuttoned blouses, while the French 
 women view through their lorgnon this savage race. 
 
 In the afternoon too they pace up and down, 
 waiting for the concert or the children's ball ; the elite 
 have gone far afield in the Jews' motor-cars to visit 
 the lighthouse at Ailly, or eat galette at Pourville, or 
 visit at Arques the white rabbits of Henri IV; the 
 English, also, have gone, no doubt to play their bar- 
 barous games; but the French are there, in different 
 clothes, daughters and young men and old men, 
 under the eye of the mothers. And as the day passes 
 and the task of it is done, the bathers watched diving 
 and swimming about the estacade, the Paris papers 
 read, the one franc fifty tea avoided, they return to 
 the half-mile of hotels to put on different clothes. 
 
 In the evening the red sun has gone, and the sea is 
 malachite green. Upon the shingle, in the moon- 
 light, lie little trails of foam, like coruscating garlands 
 of crusted opals. Dieppe is not resting, for in the 
 big ball-room two hundred couples are dancing, and 
 in the baccarat-room a crowd is watching the English 
 actress win, and envying the way in which she makes 
 her dresses meet at the back. The Terrasse is quiet 
 and silent, for it is cold, and the French fear the 
 treachery of the air. It is empty, except for an 
 English boy and girl who walk up and down laugh- 
 ing. Perhaps, behind the bandstand, they stop and 
 abruptly kiss. 
 
 II 
 
 Henri Duvernoy slowly toiled up the steep of 
 Caude-C6te. He had left behind at the Casino his 
 
PARIS-SUR-MER 211 
 
 father, who was safely occupied with a system at the 
 petits chevaux, and his mother, who liked to shelter 
 her conversation with her friends in the concert-room. 
 Monsieur Duvernoy's system was not very sound, for 
 it consisted in placing a franc on one band and a 
 franc on some number of the opposite band; this 
 gave him the joy of having five chances out of nine of 
 seeing one of his numbers succeed, but the combina- 
 tion was hardly remunerative, for four of these 
 numbers left him quits, one of them a winner of six 
 francs, and the remaining four numbers a loser of two 
 francs. But he was blissfully certain that there was 
 something in it. As for Madame Duvernoy, she was 
 happy in the idea that Henri was forgetting Suzanne, 
 for he seemed cheerful, and never mentioned her. 
 
 If Madame Duvernoy had seen her son walking 
 smartly out of Dieppe in the hot August night, she 
 would not have felt so comfortable. Henri passed 
 through the long, straggling street where most houses 
 were unlit, went by the octroi and its sleepy watch- 
 man, then left the high road to follow the precipitous 
 little path through the wood. Half-a-dozen steps 
 further and he was in the night. Right and left ran 
 the high clay banks covered with undergrowth and 
 crowned with embowering trees. It was a silent road,- 
 save for the soughing of its trees. He walked quickly 
 over the rutted clay, instinctively keeping to the 
 middle of the road, and a little nervous in the dark. 
 He thought of tramps and snakes, and at times looked 
 up anxiously to the purple sky, of which he could see 
 a strip between the tree-tops. He did not like the 
 earthy smell of the moss-grown clay; it suggested 
 a graveyards Still he went on, with a beating 
 heart, for joy waited him far off on the edge of 
 p 2 
 
212 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 Pourville; it was good to see the top of the road, 
 and then the broader expanse of dark sky. He 
 reached the top, passed quickly by his parents' 
 villa, for he did not care to be caught by Marie or 
 Charlotte : he need have had no fear, as Marie was 
 in the kitchen mending his own under-clothes, 
 Eug6nie had gone to bed, while Charlotte, whose 
 black eyes had aroused interest in a young farmer, 
 was a good way down the lane that leads to St. 
 Aubin. Still, he went by hurriedly, keeping well 
 in the shadow of the hedge. He left the villa behind 
 (a horrid imitation of the Renaissance style built for 
 Americans), passed three more houses, then the golf 
 links, their black pavilion and the famous eighty-foot 
 bunker. Now he was in the open country on the top 
 of the cliff, walking on the high road between the 
 broad dry fields; he met nothing except a motor-car, 
 which flashed by him in a blaze of acetylene lamps. 
 The night was heavy and without stars, but envelop- 
 ing and warm with the reminiscence of the day; the 
 grasshoppers sang merrily in the grass. 
 
 As Henri walked he thought of Suzanne, whom he 
 was in a few minutes going to hear, to touch, to hold 
 in his arms. Four days had elapsed since his arrival 
 and his secret was still his, for Madame Bernay's tacit 
 complicity had kept her at Pourville while Madame 
 Duvernoy confidingly remained at Dieppe. He won- 
 dered whether this would last, whether conflict could 
 be avoided, and reluctantly recognised that a meeting 
 must take place, that Madame Bernay and Suzanne 
 would be compelled by friends to enter Dieppe. He 
 saw the distant lights of Pourville now. By which 
 light could Suzanne be sitting? He walked for 
 another quarter of an hour by the furze-grown com- 
 
PARIS-SUR-MER 213 
 
 mon, coming at last to the outposts of the mushroom 
 townlet. He stopped to light a match to examine the 
 plan Suzanne had sent him. Yes, the fourth house, 
 that must be the Villa Beaulieu. He passed three 
 houses, turned up a flagged path, arrived at a gate 
 and, striking another match, read the witching name. 
 
 "Follow the wall towards the sea," said the instruc- 
 tions. "Climb the palings at the end and turn to the 
 left. When you come to a tree, stop, and then mew 
 three times." With a beating heart, Henri struck into 
 the soft spongy building land, following the white 
 wall. He found the palings, and, as he climbed them, 
 was annoyed by the obstacle, for the palings felt 
 mouldy and would do his trousers no good. He 
 dropped on the other side, trod in a pool of mud and 
 mildly swore . . . then he ran to the tree, and, as he 
 reached it, heard the chime of eleven o'clock carried 
 by the west wind from Pourville's little church. He 
 hesitated for a second, as if some unconscious sybarit- 
 ism bade him beg the fleeting moment tarry, then 
 mewed three times. 
 
 There was no reply. He was too oppressed by 
 anxiety to reflect how unpoetic was the summons : 
 but then both he and Suzanne were of the town, and 
 could not signal to one another with the cry of the 
 night-owl or the trill of the nightingale. Would she 
 come? Perhaps she had been caught. Perhaps she 
 had not heard. He mewed again, louder. He won- 
 dered what he should do if she did not come; he felt 
 a vague impulse to scale the wall, but then it looked 
 rather high. There was a faint sound, and Henri 
 gave a little cry, for a ghostly white face appeared; 
 it looked at him over the wall. 
 
 It was Suzanne. For a second those two gstied 
 
214 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 into each other's eyes; he could see her better now, 
 discern in the faint light the pools of her black eyes. 
 He drew nearer, held up his hands, dimly saw the 
 lovely lips smile. She seemed to raise herself up, to 
 throw her arms over the wall, and then Henri knew 
 only that he held in his those slim hands, that he was 
 pressing against his lips their warm, scented palms, 
 desperately kissing them. 
 
 "Henri," whispered Suzanne at last, "just behind 
 you there is a cask. I saw it this morning, but it was 
 too heavy for me to move. Roll it to the wall and 
 stand on it." 
 
 Henri found the cask, seized the heavy thing with- 
 out realising its weight and carried it to the wall in 
 his arms, bruising his face against the rough wood. 
 He leapt on it, and now overtopped the wall and 
 Suzanne, who was standing on the hen-house. Then, 
 without a word, he clasped his arms round her, felt 
 her lay her head against his chest. A very long time 
 seemed to pass in wonderful quietude, during which 
 neither thought, for both were happy as they felt upon 
 their faces the soft sweep of their breath. At last 
 Henri moved, took in one hand the girl's chin and 
 harshly kissed her unresisting lips. She shivered a 
 little, freed herself and drew back, still smiling but 
 frightened by his passion. But he held her hands 
 again, and they smiled at each other. 
 
 "I am so happy," whispered Suzanne. 
 
 "Suzette . . . maSuzie . . ." said Henri. He felt 
 a queer, inexplicable joy in the distortion of her 
 name, the joy that all lovers have in baby talk invented 
 for the loved one. 
 
 "I must not stay long. . . . Listen, there goes the 
 quarter. Mother does not know." 
 
PARIS-SUR-MER 215 
 
 "She would not mind," said Henri; "she is our 
 friend." 
 
 "Yes . . . still, I am not doing right. She would 
 scold me if she knew. I am supposed to be in bed." 
 
 And Henri realised, with overpowering joy, that she 
 was lightly clad in something soft and purple like the 
 night; it was a shock, and he felt a pang of remorse 
 when he realised how brutally he had kissed this girl 
 who had trusted him. He freed one of his hands and 
 softly caressed her loose dark hair. 
 
 "I am happy, I am happy," Suzanne murmured; 
 "it was dreadful not seeing you and wondering 
 whether you would come. Oh, I knew you would," 
 she added quickly, as a harder clasp of his hand pro- 
 tested; "but still one is like that when one . . . when 
 one . . . loves." 
 
 Again Henri bent his head down and kissed her, 
 but this time she did not draw away. Indeed, she 
 slipped one hand over his neck and held him so that 
 he could feel her tremble against him, while her 
 fingers twitched nervously on his cheek. 
 
 They talked, too innocent to see how they vulgarised 
 the unforgettable, of the harshness of Henri's parents, 
 of Madame Bernay and the value of her alliance, 
 of the days to come, when their battle was won, of 
 Dieppe, even, of bathing, of tennis, then again of 
 love, of which they knew nothing except that kisses 
 were good. They guessed, though, that they must 
 hold close to each other, for they were greedy of these 
 little contacts, which are so much greater in their sig- 
 nificance than anything the mere fulfilment of passion 
 can give. The half-hour struck. 
 
 "Oh ... I must go . . ." Suzanne whispered. 
 
 "No, no; not yet."' 
 
2i6 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 "Yes, I must; if I were found out, it would be 
 dreadful." 
 
 " No, no." Henri detained her by force, and gladly 
 she resigned herself into his hands. 
 
 "You are strong," she said at last. "I wonder 
 whether that is why I love you." 
 
 "Perhaps," said Henri. It made him glad to be 
 strong and to have her acknowledge it. "I love you 
 because ... I don't know why. You're beautiful 
 . . . and graceful . . . and clever . . . you're every- 
 thing." 
 
 She gave a happy sigh and nestled closer against 
 him. At last she looked at him with serious eyes. 
 
 "You must let me go," she said. "Really." 
 
 He looked at her, mutely appealing, but she re- 
 mained stern. 
 
 "I am cold," she said, and shivered. 
 
 At once Henri thought himself a brute. 
 
 "Yes, yes, you must go in," he said hurriedly; 
 "but, Suzanne, my Suzanne, I will come again 
 to-morrow ? " 
 
 "No . . . no, we might be caught. I must find out 
 first what mother is going to do; I will write to you. 
 There . . . good-night, you may kiss me again." 
 
 For a long minute those two, who had found joy, 
 clasped each other. They kissed and then again they 
 clasped, muttering brokenly each other's name. They 
 felt a subtle but penetrating pleasure in repeiating the 
 loved word. At last Suzanne tore herself away. 
 
 " Good-bye," she whispered as she leapt down from 
 the hen-house. 
 
 There were tears in her eyes as she turned towards 
 the house. But Henri as he slowly went home found 
 that his body was light, his step springy ; as he walked 
 
PARIS-SUR-MER 217 
 
 he softly moved his lips against each other and strove 
 to evoke in them the memory of her caress. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The heavenly days numbered three. On every one 
 Henri walked to Pourville in the night through the 
 rutty little lane, climbed the palings and stood on the 
 cask to clasp his beloved in his arms. There was no 
 jar, no fearing and trembling, almost immunity from 
 detection. Indeed, security might have tamed and 
 vulgarised his passion ; he might have looked upon 
 the walk under the stars first as a joy, then as a plea- 
 sure; by infinite gradations it might have become an 
 agreeable habit, until, by still slower gradations, his 
 desires had been exasperated and baulked so sourly 
 that passion would have fled. It was not to be. The 
 stars shone over his head, or the soft canopy of 
 night shed coolness upon his hot brow, for the ele- 
 ments themselves seemed to love the lovers, to bathe 
 them in fair winds laden with the salt of the sea and 
 the scent of summer blooms. It did not rain ; no 
 inimical dog barked, nor did watchful man intrude 
 upon these blissful snatched moments. 
 
 Henri was not, however, content with moments, 
 with the ephemeral ravishment of feeling in his those 
 slim hands. Pourville drew him irresistibly, for he 
 might there see her unawares and wonder whether she 
 thought of him when her eyes looked out upon the sea. 
 Once, as he lay upon the low cliff, he saw her speaking 
 to two young men; they laughed, he could see their 
 teeth gleaming through the clear air though he could 
 not hear them, and it was horrible that Suzanne should 
 
21 8 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 laugh when he was not there to watch the red lips curl, 
 the white teeth part a little, the long full throat swell 
 as the small head was thrown back. He got up and 
 practically crawled away. And that night, as he held 
 her close, he confessed his pains with tears in his 
 voice, was scolded as a child, and as a child com- 
 forted with caresses. Still he was moody, oddly gay 
 and oddly sorrowful ; his sudden disappearances, too, 
 disturbed Madame Duvernoy, until it struck her that 
 he probably had an affair. It was not for nothing, 
 she reflected, that a young man deserted his mother 
 half the day, and never returned before one in the 
 morning. Her innocent conclusion disturbed her a 
 little, but she was comforted. She liked to think of 
 Henri as fickle, for any division meant weakness, and 
 she was an astute enough general to know that while 
 she might be beaten by Suzanne alone, she could 
 defeat her easily if Henri's sentimental army were 
 divided. It was not pleasant to think that Henri had 
 in his life a woman other than herself, but, as she 
 reluctantly told herself, she could not be both mother 
 and sweetheart to him : thus it was better that his 
 amours should be many, for he might have many 
 loves but only one mother, and the unique mother 
 would be queen. 
 
 Thus she made no remarks, preferred no claims to 
 his society, accepted calmly clumsy apologies for his 
 absence. She attached herself to her own friends and 
 was everywhere seen with them, at eleven on the 
 estacade to watch the barbarian English girls dive, 
 without indiarubber bonnets, at three on the Terrasse, 
 with a yellow-back and a polite youth, in the eveniag 
 at the petits chevaux or in the baccarat-room. But a 
 week after her arrival she made up a small party with 
 
PARIS-SUR-MER 219 
 
 chance acquaintances to go to Pourville in the omnibus 
 which enticingly dawdles at the Caf^ des Tribunaux. 
 It was cheap, one franc fifty (for oneself ; one does not 
 treat people whose grandfather has not been to school 
 with yours), and at the end was the inexpensive sensa- 
 tion of a gouter at Graff's or galette and syrup and a 
 fivepenny flutter at the elementary petits chevaux. 
 
 It was fine, and Monsieur Marzelle amiable. 
 Madame Marzelle, fair and fat, followed giggling 
 behind with Javal, whose interest in women never 
 flagged, scandalised and delighted by his mild 
 audacities. 
 
 "It's a fine view," said Monsieur Marzelle, as he 
 stroked his black beard. 
 
 "Yes, lovely," said Madame Duvernoy. It was 
 lovely, the curving little blue bay and the hurrying 
 little river which threw itself into its arms. 
 
 "This country is not yet spoiled," said Monsieur 
 Marzelle. "It is still full of legends. These fisher- 
 men are so picturesque." 
 
 "Yes," said Madame Duvernoy, "they are fine- 
 looking men. It's a pity that they smell of fish." 
 
 "If you say that, Madame," interposed Javal, "it 
 only means you've been too near to them." 
 
 "Oh, Monsieur," gasped the fat Madame Marzelle, 
 "you do say dreadful things. C'est abominable." 
 
 " What will you ? " the young man whispered with 
 a meaning look; "there are hours . . . there are 
 moments when one is not responsible." 
 
 Monsieur Marzelle was quite unaware of the by- 
 play. His was a practical mind. 
 
 "All the same," he said, "these places are very 
 backward. Look at all that building-land ! What's 
 it worth ? — a franc a yard, not that. The houses are 
 
220 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 built anyhow by any one who can put up six thousand 
 francs, and they haven't even got the sense to buy a 
 big plot. Now what we want here is a good hotel, a 
 really good hotel; there's a good place there, where 
 you see the old brown fishermen's cottages. Some- 
 thing solid, you know, with a winter garden and a 
 verandah for a band. That 'ud wake the place up, 
 don't you think so?" 
 
 "Yes, you're quite right," murmured Madame 
 Duvernoy. 
 
 Funny, she seemed to know that woman sitting with 
 a book at the end of the etablissement de bains. 
 
 "And transit facilities," resumed the practical Mon- 
 sieur Marzelle, still oblivious of his wife, into whose 
 large and rosy ear Javal was now whispering. "We 
 want a railway, say from Rouxmesnil, and . . . why, 
 with a capital of a million or so I'd have this place 
 humming in a year with baccarat, the Paris papers by 
 ten o'clock, and a branch of the Credit Lyonnais, 
 and . . ." 
 
 Monsieur Marzelle stopped abruptly, for Madame 
 Duvernoy had broken into his ameliorative plans with 
 a hoarse ejaculation. A slim girlish figure in white 
 had joined the woman on the chair. 
 
 "You said, Madame?" he asked politely. 
 
 "Nothing, nothing," said Madame Duvernoy, with 
 immense courage. "Go on, it's very interesting." 
 
 Monsieur Marzelle gladly went on. While he talked 
 and Madame Duvernoy replied with yeses and noes 
 to suggestions for the development of Pourvilje, her 
 brain worked at a furious pace. Suzanne here, and 
 she did not know. Why did she not know? And 
 did Henri know ? But ... it was an awful idea . . . 
 these unexplained absences of his. . . . There was 
 
PARIS-SUR-MER 221 
 
 something in it; yes, that was what it meant, it was 
 a plot, a dastardly plot engineered by that designing 
 woman. Oh, it was intolerable ! 
 
 Madame Marzelle laughed out loud ; Monsieur Mar- 
 zelle pounded on with his plan; Javal, without ap- 
 parent design, touched Madame Marzelle's fat arm, 
 but Madame Duvernoy was horridly conscious of this 
 only, that Madame Bernay and Suzanne were now 
 slowly walking towards her. She felt impelled to fly, 
 but she courageously stiffened her straight back. No, 
 she wasn't going to run away. 
 
 "Let us go on to the Casino," she said evenly 
 enough, and took a step forward towards the enemy. 
 
 The two groups grew closer to each other. Madame 
 Duvernoy saw recognition flash in Madame Bernay's 
 eyes, a deep blush cover Suzanne's face and neck. 
 The girl looked away, and Madame Duvernoy closed 
 her jaws with a snap. When, however, but three 
 yards separated the two mothers, they remembered : 
 the one that she must try and capture for Suzanne the 
 rich young man, the other that the great railway case 
 was not over. The two women crossed glances, then 
 allowed their lips to relax, nocjded amiably and smiled. 
 It was over. 
 
 " Friends of yours ? " said Madame Marzelle. 
 
 "Yes . . . Madame Bernay et sa fille," said 
 Madame Duvernoy. 
 
 "Des gens charmants," she added, with an effort. 
 
 It was splendid. 
 
 IV 
 
 Madame Duvernoy did not obtain much of the 
 satisfaction she considered due to her outraged 
 
222 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 maternal feelings. When she taxed Henri with 
 having deceived her he was not surprised, for he 
 knew that a meeting was inevitable sooner or later. 
 He was merely sulky. 
 
 "Well," he replied at last, after his mother had 
 upbraided him for some ten minutes, "what was I 
 to do? It was no use telling you, you'd only have 
 made a fuss as you do now. I thought I'd better 
 chance your not meeting them." 
 
 "Yes, and sneak round there behind my back. 
 Nice to find a thing like that in my only son. Oh, 
 of course I know it's not all your fault, my poor boy : 
 they know what they're doing ; they want to entangle 
 you because nobody '11 have their girl." 
 
 "MamanI" 
 
 "Yes, that's their game. I should have thought 
 you'd have known enough of the world by now to 
 see through it. Madame Bernay is a harpy, and her 
 daughter . . . well, she's no better." 
 
 "I won't have anything said against her." 
 
 Madame Duvernoy was shaken; she did not like 
 his tone nor the sudden flash of his eyes. Still, she 
 pluckily bullied him as a man strikes his bull- 
 dog again when he growls, even though he fear the 
 beast. 
 
 "You're mean, and you're deceitful," she panted. 
 "You go on with this affair in defiance to me, to your 
 duty. You're a bad son, and ... oh, you've made 
 me so unhappy." 
 
 She was almost crying, and Henri, feeling horribly 
 guilty, knelt by her side. She repulsed him, however, 
 for he could not resign his love any more than she 
 could humble her pride. They were hideously 
 wedged, unable to move without hurting each other ; 
 
PARIS-SUR-MER 223 
 
 passionately* desirous of healing, all they could do 
 was to wound. The eternal tragedy of rival loves held 
 them and tortured them for its own obscure purposes ; 
 it demanded inexorably that opposition should refine 
 and intensify the young man's passion so that he 
 might more strenuously desire the woman chosen for 
 him by the life force ; it demanded also that the older 
 woman should fight against the gluttonous young, so 
 that she might be ground and more easily killed off, 
 so that the time might be hurried when the young 
 could thrust her out and seize her possessions for the 
 upbringing of the unborn race. They were not con- 
 scious, either of them, of their representative quality, 
 for it did not suit the force to let them know that 
 theirs was not the tragedy of the world; the force 
 needed all their sincerity, so that they might fight well 
 and fight hard, so that it might reap the spoils. 
 
 Madame Duvernoy lay awake in the night after the 
 drawn battle. She was alone; in her despair she had 
 thought of telegraphing to her husband, but at a 
 sou a word the telegram would have been rather 
 dear; instead she had written to him begging him to 
 abandon the railway case. But Monsieur Duvernoy 
 was not to be her comforter, for he recklessly wired 
 the next day. The message held out no hope; it 
 merely ran : " Do not be ridiculous." 
 
 V 
 
 August still hung heavy over the coast, and the 
 sea began to swell as if conscious of the coming 
 equinoctial tide. It lay in the sun like liquid lead 
 corrugated by faint winds. On the shingle beach 
 
224 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 hundreds of red and white umbrellas and tents flour- 
 ished for the comfort of the holiday-makers as they 
 crowded on the east side, where a bath cost only five 
 sous. It was gay and petty and light; and it was 
 cheap, as are careful French pleasures. Both at the 
 petits bains mixtes and at the petits bains des dames 
 the summer crowds watched good-humouredly the 
 daring folk who waded up to their waist in the still 
 waters, and saw them come out without being im- 
 pelled to jeer, as the Anglo-Saxon would be. Some 
 bold swimmers, needy, but snobs even in the sea, did 
 not hesitate to traverse the four hundred yards which 
 separated them from the estacade, and to dive to 
 exhaustion in the sevenpenny-halfpenny baths. 
 
 There was gaiety in the air, in the bronzed man 
 crowned by a forage cap who sold sticks of barley- 
 sugar, in the little Savoyard and Italian boys who 
 staggered over the shingle carrying on their backs 
 the plaisir tub and its lottery wheel which the gambler 
 may whirl for a sou to win, perchance, thirty light 
 cakelets, or perchance one. The French were enjoy- 
 ing themselves, fathers, mothers, children and mon- 
 grel dogs, aunts and cousins and old grandmothers 
 and old grandfathers with the medaille militaire 
 ribbon in their button-holes. The plebeian side of 
 Dieppe indulged in an unspeakable orgy of family 
 affection. They clustered solemnly round a red 
 umbrella and the mother of the family, their gon- 
 falonier; they tended to quarrel, to eat heavily of 
 sausage and to drink little, to tell in presence of 
 their daughters the kind of stories the daughters of 
 the Anglo-Saxons tell one another when alone. They 
 sat in the sun, sweated, made wordy love between 
 the courses of sausage and were singularly averse 
 
PARIS-SUR-MER 225 
 
 to kissing in public, for in these matters they are a 
 discreet race. 
 
 Henri was shut off from the gaiety. For one thing, 
 he belonged to the Casino set without knowing the 
 English, which meant that he must be a jeune homme 
 Men eleve, wear Paris clothes, change three times a 
 day, talk of Parisian plays with Parisian women who 
 valiantly wore Parisian heels. There were for him 
 no flannel shirts and wet hair, nor ungloved hands, 
 nor pipes, nor unsuspended socks : those things were 
 for the barbarian English only. Besides, his mother 
 now kept him in check, so that he could no longer 
 go to Pourville. Every day the same conversation 
 took place. 
 
 "Where are you going to this afternoon, Henri?" 
 
 " I ? I don't know. I thought of going for a walk." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "I don't know." Obviously he could not say 
 Pourville. 
 
 "Then you may as well come with me to the 
 concert." 
 
 "Pd rather go for a walk." 
 
 "Very well, cheri, Pll go with you." 
 
 And Madame Duvernoy, unless her son at the last 
 moment resigned himself to sitting in the Turkish- 
 bath concert-room where Paris-sur-Mer breathes sea 
 air, accompanied him valiantly on his expeditions. 
 A tacit convention directed these towards the south, 
 to Arques, or towards the east, to Puys or Berneval : 
 Pourville was left out. Henri was so miserably con- 
 scious of his impotence that Suzanne's letters could 
 not cheer him, for he was spied upon, watched, in 
 leading strings. The Marzelles had been told of the 
 affair by some busybody and tortured him with hints ; 
 Q 
 
226 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 Madame Marzelle, greedily desirous of every man's 
 attentions, could not forgive him his love for another 
 woman, and she too watched him, persecuted him. 
 
 "Bonjour, Monsieur Duvernoy," she would say 
 sweetly when she met him in the morning, "are you 
 not going for an excursion to-day ? " 
 
 "Perhaps, yes, it is so fine." 
 
 "Ah, yes, to Pourville, no doubt; such a charming 
 spot." 
 
 "Yes ... oh yes, it's very pretty." 
 
 "And they say there are charming people there," 
 the vixen would add. 
 
 Sometimes Henri was rather rude. 
 
 Henri's one ally was Javal, not a very keen or 
 sympathetic ally, for the dark youth still considered 
 the affair idiotic. But after all he was Henri's friend, 
 and all intrigues were agreeable to him. Henri 
 entrusted to him his secret means of access to Suzanne. 
 
 "Hein?" asked Javal, with sudden interest, "do 
 you go every night ? " 
 
 "I haven't been for five days, since my mother 
 found out. She's watching me, I can't go." 
 
 "What? " shouted Javal. "Does she sleep on your 
 doormat ? " 
 
 "No . . . but what do you mean, Javal? . . . Oh, 
 I say, that's an idea.' 
 
 " Tu es idiot, absolument idiot. If you want to 
 see your girl, what prevents you from getting out at 
 twelve or so? She'd come." 
 
 " Do you think so ? " Henri asked, with a beating 
 heart. 
 
 "Parbleu! I assure you her friend, la belle 
 Morenda, she's not above it." 
 
 "Letitia?" 
 
PARIS-SUR-MER 227 
 
 "Yes, Letitia. I've been there myself; don't you 
 know she's staying at the Bernays' villa ? " 
 
 "No, I didn't know, Suzanne didn't tell me." 
 
 "No, I suppose not, you were too busy. Oh, don't 
 fly out," he added petulantly, as a red-brown wave 
 of colour rose to Henri's face, "I know you're a saint, 
 and Suzanne too ; now Letitia and I . . . well . . ." 
 
 "Javall You don't suggest . . .?" 
 
 "Well, we're not all like you," said Javal negli- 
 gently. He was lying; he could not bear to have it 
 thought that Letitia resisted him; if she had yielded 
 to him he would not, any more than any of his com- 
 patriots, have hesitated to drag her name through the 
 mud : as she had plainly told him at their last meet- 
 ing that her terms were marriage, the lie was ^ffiiost 
 a revenge. 
 
 Henri was depressed by this conversation. He 
 liked Letitia, and it was enough to know that Suzanne 
 was her friend for him to idealise her; the thought 
 that an impure woman could be near the pearl of the 
 world was intolerable to him. When two nights later 
 he followed Javal's advice, after making an appoint- 
 ment with Suzanne through the faithful Jeanne 
 Br^guet, he tried to broach the subject. But the 
 words would not come; he could not talk to his be- 
 loved of these vile things. He could only hold her 
 in his arms, breathe into her ears protestations of 
 love, inflame her courage and his own. August was 
 passing, nothing was done. Soon they would return 
 to Paris and the weary round would again begin, the 
 dullness and the battles and the hopeless strife. 
 
 Monsieur Duvernoy arrived just before the races, 
 but he too avoided the subject. He settled it with 
 his wife in very few words. 
 
 Q2 
 
228 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 "No nonsense," he said, with unwonted energy. 
 
 "Jules," said his wife fiercely, "it's getting worse. 
 He's been seeing her at Pourville. For what I know 
 he's seeing her still : I can't watch him day and 
 night." 
 
 "It can't be helped. He can't marry without our 
 consent." 
 
 "But, Jules, he may compromise her . . . there'll 
 be a scandal." 
 
 "Hein? Compromise her? Let him. I don't care 
 if he does : it won't hurt him, and ... if I know 
 anything against Bernay, anything I can use, what- 
 ever happens I'll keep his case." 
 
 Madame Duvernoy was silent. Yes, that was a 
 strong argument. 
 
 VI 
 
 At last August was drawing to an end. Race week 
 had come, that week so different from the other fifty- 
 one, when Dieppe knows greatness, deliriously feasts 
 in anticipation of the fast to come. Fishing Dieppe 
 was completely swamped by the real Dieppe as the 
 latter streamed in by every train, packed into the half- 
 mile of hotels, overflowed into the villas on the little 
 hills, into the apartment houses on the steep of the 
 Avenue Gambetta. The real Dieppe came too in 
 many motors from Normand chdteaux, from Cabourg, 
 Etretat, Deauville, from all the little places on the 
 coast ; the husbands arrived, and the men from Rouen 
 with their ready-made ties and their wives with the 
 Rouen hats. The English increased in numbers, and 
 they were a new kind of English ; they did not belong 
 
PARIS-SUR-MER 229 
 
 to the boy-and-girl section which turns Dieppe into 
 a St. Andrews-cum-Queen's Club, nor to the elite 
 which fastidiously clusters round the English actress 
 who is so French that her bodices meet down the 
 back. The new English had neither the taste for 
 picnics and flirting of the former, nor the discriminat- 
 ing appetite of the latter who haunt the little restaur- 
 ant opposite the Saint-Saens museum : they had come 
 for the races, and they looked it. The men had an 
 air of soap and hard short hair, fresh cheeks, loud 
 clothes; they met in the baccarat-room and sniffed at 
 the maximum ; they clustered at the Casino buffet and 
 pretended it was a bar. They made no rushes for the 
 Daily Telegraph at four o'clock, but the post brought 
 them pink or orange sheets. As for their women, they 
 were smart in the coat and skirt style, smoked, and 
 drank cocktails. Sportsmen all. There were Ameri- 
 cans too, Paris Americans, not the American boy with 
 the padded shoulders and the square-toed shoes and 
 the Gibson girl, but the Paris Americans with the 
 big motors, the Homburgs and the English accent. 
 And Dieppe was ready for them all. The theatre 
 ran three plays and starred R6jane (which annoyed 
 the English actress, as it would make London say 
 that they were more and more alike) ; relays of 
 croupiers were imported from Forges-les-Eaux and 
 Etretat; as for the orchestra, it played Jubel every 
 night because the overture introduces "God Save the 
 King." And everybody came. Madame Sarlat- 
 Cohen came from Trouville, on her way to Contr^xe- 
 ville, where M^zin was taking the waters; Madame 
 Chavel came in the Castelac motor with the lovely 
 Pauline and her conqueror-conquest; the Samaros 
 came and settled in a third-floor back in the Rue de 
 
230 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 Sygogne, while Pervenche returned from Brighton. 
 It was to be his one appearance in France during 
 the summer; after Dieppe he was going to Scheve- 
 ningen for a week or so before seeking out the sun 
 at San Sebastian. 
 
 The Duvernoys were on the course the second day. 
 There had been some talk of hiring a fly. 
 
 "I think it ridiculous," said Madame Duvernoy, 
 "it'll cost twenty francs, and twenty francs more for 
 each of us to get into the members' enclosure." 
 
 "We only go once a year," said her husband 
 indulgently. 
 
 "No reason for wasting money." 
 
 "Perhaps we'll win at the pari mutuel," Henri 
 suggested. 
 
 ~ " Very likely," sneered his father, " I suppose you'll 
 put your money on Suzette." 
 
 Henri flushed angrily, but could say nothing. 
 Suzette was certainly a hot favourite for the Prix des 
 Etrangers. At last Madame Duvernoy won. They 
 came in the train, first class, for it looked better. 
 Once through the long avenue which leads to the 
 course from Rouxmesnil they were among friends. 
 They met Javal and the Marzelles and walked with them 
 to the entrance; the dark youth was still flirting with 
 the fat Madame Marzelle, while her husband wagged 
 his black beard and talked to Monsieur Duvernoy of 
 the great things that might be done with the little river 
 if only it were dredged, provided with boat-houses 
 and boats. 
 
 "Why," he said at length, "it might be turned into 
 a regular Bougival. Swings, you know, and switch- 
 backs and plenty of coloured lights after dark." 
 
 Madame Marzelle laughed her smothered laugh, 
 
PARIS-SUR-MER 231 
 
 and Javal brushed her shoulder unseen and un- 
 rebuked. The party separated at the entrance, for the 
 Marzelles and Javal were bound for the cheaper 
 middle ring. Once on the course, Henri had a 
 moment of pure pleasure. The sun showered torrid 
 heat over the short grass ; the shapely and glistening 
 horses ambled slowly round the paddock, muffled up 
 in blankets and led by brisk English lads, while here 
 and there the casaque of a jockey made a bright spot 
 of colour. All round him, too, was a gay throng of 
 women in trim racing clothes, fawn linen and black- 
 and-white checks, women delightfully mannish with 
 their race-glasses and cards, and yet very French 
 when you looked into their eyes. Besides, they had 
 not quite the figures (or the absence of figures) 
 required by their clothes. The barbarian English, 
 who mostly refused to take the races seriously, wore 
 tweed coats and flannej trousers, while their women 
 in some cases dared to dangle their hats in their 
 hands. 
 
 "One might think," said Madame Samaro, "that 
 they were on the beach." 
 
 For the Samaros had arrived all three, by favour of 
 free passes granted to " foreign diplomats " who are 
 also company directors. 
 
 "You are right, Madame," said Monsieur 
 Duvernoy, "these English are not civilise.^. They do 
 what they like, they go to the opera in knickerbockers, 
 and when they travel . . . ! Have I ever told you 
 what happened to me in a railway carriage at Lille ? " 
 
 Monsieur Duvernoy began his lengthy story about 
 the Englishman's pipe. 
 
 "' . . . Non, Monsieur,' I said, 'you have a 
 pipe . . .'" 
 
232 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 Henri turned to Dolores and Mercedes, both mag- 
 nificent and overpowering in white. They rolled over 
 him their immense eyes. 
 
 "What are you backing, Monsieur Duvernoy?" 
 asked Dolores. 
 
 "Give me a tip, will you? I shan't tell," said 
 Mercedes. 
 
 "Oh, I'm no racing man," replied Henri. "Still," 
 he added unguardedly, "I hear that Suzette . . ." 
 
 Dolores winked at Mercedes and both exploded. 
 The young man was much embarrassed on realising 
 his stupidity, while Madame Samaro threw him an 
 inquiring glance; she felt sure he was being dis- 
 respectful to her daughters. But Monsieur Duvernoy 
 paralysed her with his — 
 
 " ' . . . Non, Monsieur, ' I said, ' you have a 
 pipe . . .'" 
 
 Madame Duvernoy began to praise Mercedes' 
 frock, upon which Dolores hurled herself upon her 
 opportunity. 
 
 "I say," she murmured, casting languid looks over 
 Henri, "tell me. Monsieur Duvernoy, is it true about 
 Suzanne Bernay? . . . Ah, ah, it is true, you are 
 blushing." 
 
 "I'm not blushing," said Henri angrily. 
 
 "Then you've had a sunstroke." The big dark 
 girl laughed again. "There, don't be angry. 
 Everybody's talking about it. They say Madame 
 Bernay's quite willing, and that . . . that . . ." 
 
 "That my mother isn't. It's true, she isn't." 
 
 "Ah," sighed Dolores, "how triste that is. But 
 persevere, patience and shuffle the cards, as we say in 
 Spanish. She is very pretty, I congra;tuIate you." 
 
 "You are very kind," said Henri genuinely, 
 drawing nearer. 
 
PARIS-SUR-MER 233 
 
 "I wish I were in love," sighed Dolores. "I 
 suppose I'll have to wait until I'm married." 
 
 Henri looked at her sympathetically. She was not 
 bad-looking, this Dolores, in her fierce South Ameri- 
 can way; she had a coarse skin, but good eyes and 
 thick black hair. They were quite close now, and, 
 as he moved, his hand touched the girl's bare, strong 
 forearm. He was warmed by her sympathy and 
 hardly realised that she did not move her arm away. 
 But Madame Samaro felt rather than saw the danger. 
 She broke away from Monsieur Duvernoy, who was 
 now beginning his story over again — 
 
 "'. . . Non, Monsieur,' I said, 'you have a 
 pipe . . .'" 
 
 She broke the group up by congratulating Henri 
 on his taste in ties, then turned to speak to the 
 Chavels, who came up followed by the negligent de 
 Castelac and the impeccable Pervenche. The latter 
 was immaculately turned out, straight from Sackville 
 Street, complete with his English Homburg, spats 
 and dogskin gloves. The clothes suited him, as even- 
 ing clothes suited him, as did golf clothes and yacht- 
 ing suits. He was the kind of man who could look 
 distinguished in a wet bathing suit. 
 
 "Allans, Castelac, mon ami," said Madame Chavel, 
 "go and put a hundred francs for me on Tapette. 
 She's my fancy." 
 
 "It's a he," said Castelac, laughing. 
 
 "Never mind, how can one tell from a horse*s 
 name? Back him for a place. What are you 
 laughing at. Mademoiselle Samaro?" 
 
 "Nothing." Dolores was choking, and turned to 
 Pervenche for help. But Petronius took no notice 
 of her. He was gravely examining the lovely Pauline, 
 who cast fearful eyes at him. 
 
234 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 "Well?" she said at length, breathing hard. 
 
 "Not bad, not bad," muttered Pervenche at last. 
 "A little long between shoulder and waist." 
 
 "Oh," cried Mercedes, "you can't find fault with 
 Doucet." 
 
 "I can find fault anywhere when I'm asked to 
 criticise clothes," said Pervenche. 
 
 "But I assure you it's not too long," cried Pauline. 
 "Maman, he says it's too long between shoulder and 
 waist." 
 
 "Well, Monsieur Pervenche knows," said Miadame 
 Chavel. 
 
 " It isn't too long," cried Dolores, joining the group. 
 
 "Yes, it is," said Madame Duvernoy, irresistibly 
 drawn to them. 
 
 Pervenche was surrounded by the women, all 
 screaming together. Pauline was twirled round, 
 pushed. She was nearly weeping when Pervenche at 
 last found a pin and, deftly inserting a tuck under 
 the arm, removed the fold. 
 
 "There," he said, "now you are perfect. Show that 
 to Doucet." 
 
 Henri and Monsieur Duvernoy were left out, for 
 all the women still clustered round Pervenche, who 
 was now talking for them. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "it's a gift. An art. I'm prouder 
 of it than if I had a title." 
 
 "Oh, we don't think so much of titles," said 
 Madame Chavel airily. 
 
 "I know, chere Madame, nor do certain people. 
 Which reminds me of the latest. I heard it the other 
 day at the club, at Brighton. It appears that Jacques 
 d'Ervin, the playwright, you know (his real name 
 is Pochon), wrote to Vallier, the manager, asking 
 
PARIS-SUR-MER 235 
 
 whether he might call and read his new play. Vallier, 
 who's a good friend whom I adore, wrote back say- 
 ing, ' Yes, come Tuesday.' But that didn't suit that 
 little snob of a Pochon . . . d'Ervin, I mean . . ." 
 
 "Ah, ah," cried Dolores, "you are cruel." 
 
 "So he answered : ' Mon cher Vallier, — Can't do it 
 next week. On Tuesday I lunch with the Comtesse 
 de Miramar, Wednesday with the Marquise de St. 
 R^my, Thursday I am going to the Due de Gueret's 
 hunt, Friday to the Prince J6r6me's, and Saturday, 
 probably, to pass the day with the Shah of Persia. 
 What about the week after? " 
 
 "Ah, ah." There was a burst of laughter. 
 
 "He is a fine snob, your d'Ervin." 
 
 "Pochon, chere Madame, Pochon. But Vallier 
 won. He wrote back : ' Mon cher d'Ervin, — Impossible 
 the week after. On Monday I lunch with my boot- 
 maker, Tuesday my butcher lunches with me; on 
 Wednesday I go to an " at home " given by the 
 croupier of my club, on Thursday I go cycling with 
 the chiropodist, while Friday is no good as I am 
 booked to go and play with the barber's baby, and 
 Saturday no good either, for I'm going to Saint 
 Cloud to your butler's wedding." 
 
 The triumph of Pervenche was complete. Madame 
 Duvei'noy laughed, while Pauline's fine stupid eyes 
 opened in wonder, and the Samaro women convul- 
 sively giggled. Henri had not heard the end, for 
 his eyes were fixed on a party of three. It was the 
 Bernay family, Monsieur Bernay tired and bitter- 
 looking, Miadame Bernay tired and smiling, Suzanne 
 deliciously flushed. She raised her black lashes and 
 looked at him with a pitiful little smile which made 
 him want to snatch her up and bolt. But he was no 
 
236 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 hero. The Bernays were quite near. Madame 
 Bernay smiled in response to his bow; at once 
 Madame Duvernoy turned, and then her husband 
 followed the direction of her eyes. The two families 
 remained face to face, for Pervenche was occupying 
 the rest of the party. The six felt between them the 
 complex atmosphere of self-interest which acts as a 
 link and as a barrier. As they stood stupidly smiling 
 with muscles schooled by habit, they desperately 
 searched their brains for something to say. They 
 were all conscious of big issues : Madame Duvernoy 
 of her protective passion, Madame Bernay of her 
 desire for Suzanne's happiness, the young people of 
 each other. The men were less awkward, for the 
 sight of one another mainly brought up their business 
 relations, but they were hampered by the strife that 
 reigned between their wives. If they had been alone 
 they would have spoken easily. The women looked 
 at one another, opened and then shut their mouths; 
 it meant an effort for them to avoid vital issues. 
 They felt it almost impossible to talk of the heat or 
 the horses; an awful impulse was on them to rush 
 publicly into debate, to clamour for the happiness or 
 the peace of their children. They were removed from 
 the atmosphere of pleasure that surrounded them, 
 isolated, as it were, by the fierceness of their passions. 
 At last Madame Bernay pulled herself together. 
 
 "What a surprise ! " she faltered. "I did not know 
 you were still at Dieppe. Enchantie." 
 
 "No more did I, chere Madame," said Madame 
 Duvernoy. "The world is very small." 
 
 There was a pause. 
 
 "Well, how are you, Duvernoy?" asked Bernay. 
 
 "Very well, thanks. Very hot, isn't it?" 
 
PARIS-SUR-MER 237 
 
 "Ah, yes, very hot," said Madame Bernay, "we 
 suffer dreadfully at Pourville. Suzanne can hardly 
 sleep, n'est-ce pas, Suzanne ? " 
 
 "Oui, maman." 
 
 The tension relaxed. The groups mixed; the 
 Samaro women came in and trampled down the 
 barrier. Soon all were talking of the things civilised 
 people talk of, the weather, the favourites, their luck 
 at cards. Pervenche's voice was heard — 
 
 "That young man, there? " 
 
 "Yes," said Dolorfes, "look at his plastered yellow 
 hair, he must be English." 
 
 " He ? " said Pervenche, " oh no, he looks much too 
 English to be an Englishman ; he must be a German." 
 
 Then Monsieur Duvernoy coughed, cleared his 
 throat, threw a glance at his wife. He spoke in a 
 low but clear voice, the railway-case voice. 
 
 "Oh, I say, Bernay," he remarked, as if casually, 
 "we shall be so glad if you will all three come and 
 dine with us next week. Choose your day." 
 
CHAPTER THE SIXTH 
 
 VINGT-CINQ ANS 
 I 
 
 The heavy December drizzle had swallowed up the 
 Eiffel Tower. From the dining-room window all that 
 could be seen was the iron-grey sky where no sun 
 shimmered behind the pall of falling rain. Below, 
 in the municipal yard, a dismal wind blew through 
 the bare branches of the chestnut tree, while in every 
 corner of the courtyard the water could be heard 
 falling with a curious metallic clatter from the rain- 
 pipes and the zinc roofs. But there was in the dining- 
 room a gaiety and an atmosphere of excitement, 
 fostered by the tumbling and laughter of the eight 
 people who were gathered there. The room was 
 small, but its size encouraged merriment as do all 
 propinquities when they do not encourage quarrels. 
 Already the table was laid for nine, and there was 
 about its appointments a feeling of the unusual ; the 
 silver had been cleaned ; some money had been spent 
 on a small bowl of orchids ; some money had bought 
 hot-house grapes. 
 
 And there was festiveness even in Mademoiselle 
 Ravier, as she walked round the room peering with 
 her short-sighted eyes at the silver teapot outlined 
 behind the muslin curtains of the sideboard, at the 
 
 238 
 
VINGT-CINQ ANS 239 
 
 marble-topped dumb waiter, even at the tall brown 
 stove in which an economical fire struggled for its 
 life. 
 
 "Charmant, charmant," she repeated vaguely, as 
 she passed every object in review with the sickening 
 approval of the sycophant. "Marthe, you have so 
 much taste." 
 
 "Oh no, ma tante, everything's very simple," said 
 Madame Duvernoy jovially. 
 
 "And your flowers!" pursued the relentlessly 
 admiring Mademoiselle Ravier, "how lovely ! " 
 
 "Lovely," echoed the poor ghost ofs a Lacour 
 spinster, as she followed round the room the head of 
 the house. 
 
 "Lovely," said the other Lacour girl. Her voice 
 was the same as that of her sister, her smile the same, 
 as were her tightly drawn strands of hair and faded 
 clothes. Those two, as well as Mademoiselle Ravier, 
 wore the livery of dependence. 
 
 "I hope Henri '11 be pleased," muttered Madame 
 Duvernoy. 
 
 "He must be difficile if he isn't," said Monsieur 
 Lacour with a laugh. He was Madame Duvernoy's 
 younger brother, an Algerian grower of alfalfa, in 
 Paris for a holiday with Jacques, his son, and his 
 little girl Julie. His bronzed thin face and gay blue 
 eyes seemed to caress that which they touched. But 
 there was decision and some coldness in his thin lips, 
 hardness in his square chin. Henri had not thrown 
 back to this particular uncle. " Voyons, Jacques," he 
 added, "leave your sister alone." 
 
 "I'm not hurting her, papa," said the boy, as he 
 pushed the little girl into a corner. Julie was 
 laughing. Jacques opened the door of a cupboard. 
 
240 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 "I'm going to put you in it," he said. 
 
 There was a struggle between the black-a-vised boy 
 and his excitable swarthy little sister. She was 
 rescued only when half in the cupboard and emerged 
 flushed and almost crying from between piles of 
 Henri's old school books. 
 
 "Jacques," said Monsieur Duvernoy severely, "if 
 you crumple your sister's frock I'll stop your grapes." 
 
 "Or send you back to the lycee" threatened Mon- 
 sieur Lacour. 
 
 "No you won't, papa," said the boy impudently, 
 "they've got scarlet fever there." 
 
 Everybody laughed, the men and Madame Duver- 
 noy boldly, Mademoiselle Ravier in a faint ingratiat- 
 ing cackle. The Lacour phantoms allowed smiles to 
 dawn on their pale lips. 
 
 "They do get precocious in Algiers," said Mon- 
 sieur Duvernoy. 
 
 "They do," said his brother-in-law; "it's the sun, 
 you know. We'll have Jacques marrying at 
 seventeen." 
 
 "And Julie at twelve," said Jacques. 
 
 "Keep quiet, Jacques," said Madame Duvernoy 
 angrily. 
 
 The ambient excitement seemed to increase ; the two 
 men talked of business and colonial expansion, the 
 children romped ; the poor relations followed Madame 
 Duvernoy round the table and got in the way of 
 Charlotte, who wanted to give it some unnecessary 
 finishing touches. Then the door opened and Henri 
 entered the room. 
 
 "Ah, le voild.", 
 
 "Bonjour Henri, a happy birthday ! " 
 
 "Cousin Henri, Cousin Henri!" cried the little 
 
VINGT-CINQ ANS 241 
 
 girl, running up to him. Henri blushed and stam- 
 mered as the children boldly tugged at his hands. 
 His father smiled; Madame Duvernoy put her arms 
 round his neck and kissed him on both cheeks. He 
 looked handsome in his embarrassment, rosy, blue- 
 eyed. He could not answer the compliments of Mon- 
 sieur Lacour, the children's questions, avoid the shy 
 and dutiful embraces of the Lacour spinsters. 
 
 The wishing of Henri's birthday had becom'e among 
 the Duvernoys a recognised breach of French usages. 
 In older and better days, when no Republic domi- 
 nated the country, St. Henri's Day would duly have 
 been commemorated by a dinner on St. Henri's Eve; 
 but St. Henri's Eve falls on the fatal fourteenth of 
 July when the canaille rejoices over the downfall of 
 the royal house. Thus Monsieur Duvernoy, who 
 could look upon the great day only as a day of 
 mourning, had decreed in '81 that the feast should 
 be shifted to the anniversary of his son's birth : he 
 gladly sacrificed the boy's patron saint to his political 
 convictions. On this particular birthday custom had 
 been further disregarded and the regulation dinner 
 replaced by a lunch, for Lacour's business engage- 
 ments would have made impossible his presence in 
 the evening : to miss a relative avoidably would have 
 been a calamity. The untraditional party was merry 
 enough, so much so that it was difficult to restore 
 order. 
 
 "Silence! " cried Monsieur Duvernoy in his best 
 law-court style. "We must get to business. Henri, 
 you begin your twenty-sixth year well, breakfast in 
 bed and up at eleven." 
 
 "Lazy," said the greatly daring Mademoiselle 
 Ravier. 
 
242 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 "You are right, ma tante," said Monsieur Duver- 
 noy, "still, we will forgive him. Shut the door, Marie; 
 I feel a draught." 
 
 Old Marie shut the door and stood against it, 
 beaming upon her beloved Henri as he hesitated in 
 the middle of the room. By her side stood Charlotte, 
 broadly smiling, and Eug6nie, rather flushed and 
 wiping her hands on her blue apron. 
 
 "Henri," said Monsieur Duvernoy gravely, "we 
 are here to wish you a happy birthday. This is the 
 twenty-fifth anniversary of your birth, and I ... we 
 all hope your future career, your health and your 
 happiness will be as good and . . . er . . . better 
 than ever they have been . . . and I want you to 
 accept from me a small present. As I did not know 
 what to buy I have left it to you." 
 
 " Merci bien, papa," said Henri, as he took the 
 envelope from his father. 
 
 "You do the thing well," said Monsieur Lacour to 
 his brother-in-law, as he saw the young man hold up 
 three hundred-franc notes. 
 
 "Oh, it's nothing," said Monsieur Duvernoy, with 
 a moved self-conscious laugh. He felt awkward and 
 happy as his big son kissed him on both cheeks. 
 "Now," he said, "your turn, Jacques." 
 
 The dark boy stepped forward, looking very nigger- 
 like in the black-and-gold uniform of the Algiers 
 lycee. He cast bold eyes round the room before 
 beginning. 
 
 "Cousin Henri," he said, with the calmness of one 
 who is used to the glare of publicity, " I have much 
 joy in wishing you happy and prosperous years. I 
 have not known you very long, but still enough to 
 esteem and respect you, to know that the reputation 
 
VINGT-CINQ ANS 243 
 
 of our family is safe in your hands. Thus it is my 
 pleasure as well as my duty to present you with this 
 gun-metal cigarette-case, as a toiien of our regard and 
 [the orator nearly broke down] it is tres anglais." 
 
 "Bravo!" cried Monsieur Duvernoy. "We must 
 make this boy a barrister. He speaks better than 
 I do." 
 
 "And more," said Monsieur Lacour. "Still, 
 Jacques, that is well spoken." 
 
 Henri took the gun-metal case, kissing his young 
 cousin as he so did. 
 
 Now the little girl was pushed forward too ; she 
 stood for some seconds, shifting her feet, her serious 
 dark eyes fixed on the carpet. 
 
 "Now, Julie, don't be timid," said Madame 
 Duvernoy, smiling. 
 
 "I'm not timid," said the child, "I'm waiting for 
 you to stop talking." 
 
 There was laughter, a cry of " Vas-y-donc, eh! 
 Polaire," from Monsieur Lacour; but not until silence 
 was established did Julie lift from the floor her 
 deliberate gaze. Then she began in even tones the 
 traditional compliment — 
 
 A MON COUSIN 
 
 Je vous souhaite, mon cousin, 
 En vous offrant ces pauvres fleurs, 
 Un heureux et joyeux destin, 
 Santd, richesse et long bonheur. 
 Je souhaite que le Bon Dieu 
 Vous donne des rfeves charmants, 
 Vous fasse vivre fort et vieux : 
 Tel est, cousin, mon compliment. 
 
 As the " bravos " of the assembly burst forth Henri 
 bent down to kiss the dark child, but the womanly 
 little girl pushed him back with a small hand. 
 
 R2 
 
244 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 "Un instant," she said, "les fleurs." She pre- 
 sented him with the bouquet, and then only put her 
 hand on his shoulder and kissed his cheek. Henri 
 felt absurdly moved by the stereotyped doggerel she 
 had recited ; he guessed that it was extracted from one 
 of the little penny books where short recitations for 
 every occasion and every relationship are to be found 
 ready made, but still the atmosphere of it affected his 
 simple soul. As he kissed the calm precocious child 
 he was conscious all through him that family life, 
 the simplicity and the innocence it stood for, were 
 the things he so badly wanted. And he thought of 
 another, a lovelier face, of little faces like that other 
 one. 
 
 But already the household had reasserted itself. 
 Eugenie, hot and flushed with excitement, handed 
 him a tobacco pouch, an unfortunate selection as he 
 did not make his own cigarettes. He acknowledged 
 it with a hearty handshake, as also a breakfast cup 
 and saucer, gorgeous red-and-white articles with 
 " Henri " boldly painted on both, from black-eyed 
 Charlotte. Old Marie nearly wept as, after accepting 
 embroidered slippers, he kissed her on both cheeks. 
 Mademoiselle Ravier presented him with an appal- 
 ling red-and-grey knitted comforter, made by her own 
 hands; the Lacour spinsters burdened him with a 
 water-colour (probably a landscape), painted by the 
 elder and framed by the younger in magenta velvet. 
 He was kissed, and the atmosphere of this faded 
 femininity disturbed while it pleased him. They kissed 
 him shyly and yet with the intensity of those to whom 
 kisses come seldom. At last he freed himself, laugh- 
 ing, ruffled and blushing ; he felt gay and warmed by 
 all this affection and this kindliness which enveloped 
 
VINGT-CINQ ANS 245 
 
 him. Then his eyes met those of his mother, and he 
 realised that he had forgotten her; her gaze was 
 inquisitive and piteous, also compelling, as if she were 
 demanding his attention. His mood changed, and 
 he stood before her suddenly cold. 
 
 "Henri," said Madame Duvernoy in even tones, 
 "surely there is nothing I can wish you to-day, for 
 you know that I . . . that I always wish everything 
 that will make you happy. . . ." [Their thoughts 
 flew together towards the same goal.] "I ... I 
 wish you everything in the world, Henri, that you 
 may be healthy and strong, and that you may never 
 know a day of sorrow . . ." [Oh, could she go on 
 and see those eyes?] . . . "that you may succeed in 
 what you attempt and that . . . that all your desire 
 . . ." [No, no, not all, not all !] . . . "that you may 
 be happy . . . happy." 
 
 And then Madame Duvernoy burst into tears, thus 
 creating among the assembled relatives the impres- 
 sion that she had a sensitive nature. Henri took her 
 in his arms, melted too, while she thrust into his hand 
 a small parcel which he could feel through the flimsy 
 paper to be a watch and chain. She pressed her face 
 against the tweed of his coat, still weeping; Henri's 
 eyes were wet, too, as he bent down and whispered — 
 
 "Maman, can't you give me . . . ?" 
 
 She alone heard the end of the sentence, and again 
 surprised the relatives by suddenly releasing herself 
 and facing her son with a tight mouth and flaming 
 cheeks. 
 
 "Ah, les femmes," innocent Monsieur Lacour 
 summed up, all nerves, all nerves. 
 
246 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 II 
 
 "Jules,"' said Madame Duvernoy suddenly, "are 
 you asleep ? " 
 
 "No, I thought you were." 
 
 "I can't sleep. I'm suffering." 
 
 " What's the matter — stomach-ache ? " 
 
 "Don't be silly, Jules," said Madame Duvernoy 
 angrily, as she raised herself up in bed on one elbow ; 
 "I'm thinking of Henri." 
 
 " What's the matter with him ? He seems cheerful 
 enough." 
 
 "Cheerful I One can see you're only a man; you 
 don't understand; you don't see he's still thinking 
 about that girl." 
 
 "Well, that's no news," said Monsieur Duvernoy 
 in an acid tone, "I know that as well as you do. You 
 haven't discovered America, my dear Marthe." 
 
 "I'm talking about Henri. You don't know what 
 he said to me to-day when I gave him that watch and 
 chain." 
 
 "Oh! what did he say?" Monsieur Duvernoy 
 was interested and turned towards his wife, whom he 
 could not see. 
 
 "He said, ' Maman, can't you give me the present 
 I want most in the world, your consent to my 
 marriage? ' " 
 
 There was silence for a moment while Monsieur 
 Duvernoy considered the situation. Then he spoke — 
 
 "What did you say?" 
 
 "I didn't say anything, I was too angry." 
 
 "Hum, yes. Well, I suppose you couldn't say 
 anything." 
 
VINGT-CINQ ANS 247 
 
 "Jules, what do you mean? Do you suggest that 
 we should consent ? " Monsieur Duvernoy did not 
 reply until his wife had repeated her question. 
 
 "No," he said at length, "I don't say that. Still, 
 if he's set on it, if he's made up his mind . . ." 
 
 " How can you talk like that, Jules ? You know 
 this Bernay is a scoundrel. If the girl had some 
 money, I don't say . . . but she hasn't. It's 
 abominable. I won't have my son sacrificed. I won't 
 have him thrown away on a girl with no dot whom 
 nobody will have. I won't have it. I can't bear it. 
 It's cruel of you to turn against me. It's not fair, 
 it's not loyal, it's . . ." 
 
 "Now, Marthe, what have I said? I haven't said 
 you should consent." 
 
 "You suggested it." 
 
 "I didn't. Still, if the boy is bent on it ... it 
 would make things easier with Bernay; you see, his 
 case isn't finished by a long way, and it won't be for 
 at least a year now the Government's in it." 
 
 "You're not going to sacrifice Henri to that case." 
 
 "Oh, don't be absurd." 
 
 "I won't have him sacrificed. He's my boy. I've 
 brought him up ... I've made him what he is . . . 
 I'm entitled to his obedience. . . ." 
 
 Madame Duvernoy sat up and feverishly smoothed 
 her face with her hot hands. Her breath came so 
 quickly that she felt suffocated as she fought and 
 clamoured for this son of hers. She was going to 
 believe in her absolute rights if she had to shout until 
 she drowned opposing voices. 
 
 "Oh, do be sensible!" 
 
 "Sensible ! " Madame cast a. look of scorn towards 
 the spot where her husband lay invisible. Sensible 
 
248 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 indeed ! sensible when she was struggling for a thing 
 as precious as her own life. At that moment she 
 hated and despised her husband. She had no sym- 
 pathy with the masculine temperament ; she could not 
 grasp that its function was to construct, to compromise 
 with difficulties and to sacrifice principles so that it 
 might go on, build, make money, reputation by which 
 the race would benefit; she only saw egoism and 
 indifference where there is the blind natural force 
 which creates in the male an illusion of egoism so 
 that he may serve an altruistic purpose. She thought 
 that her husband ought to be like her, hard, mulish, 
 so that he could maintain ; she was there to protect 
 young life, he to attack the world on its behalf ; but 
 she would have had him enlist under the woman's 
 colours, stand by her side and hold the fort. 
 
 "Sensible," she again snarled. 
 
 "Yes, sensible; you can't always do what you like 
 with a son ... in some cases you must give way a 
 little . . . make allowances . . . especially when you 
 must." 
 
 "Must?" 
 
 "Yes . . . what would you do if Henri defied 
 you ? " 
 
 "Oh ... he wouldn't." 
 
 " He might." 
 
 "I'd never consent." 
 
 "Well, you know, there is a new fact in the 
 situation." 
 
 "A new fact?" said Madame Duvernoy in a low, 
 intense voice. 
 
 "Yes, he's twenty-five now. The law now allows 
 him to do without our consent. He can go to any 
 huissier and call upon us to give way, and ... if 
 
VINGT-CINQ ANS 249 
 
 we don't . . . well, you know that as well as I do 
 ... he can do without our leave." 
 
 The old couple did not speak for some moments. 
 Madame Duvernoy laid her head on the pillow as if 
 Tcnocked down by an unexpected blow. Yes, of course 
 she knew the law; she knew that up to the age of 
 twenty-five a son could not marry without his parents' 
 consent, that on his twenty-fifth birthday he could 
 dispense with their approval by serving upon them 
 the equivalent of a summons. A summons ! She 
 had a horrid vision of the scrubby huissier in dingy 
 black who would mumble at her the formula by which 
 Henri signified that he flouted her authority. She 
 saw the man's shaven face and dirty whiskers, heard 
 the dreary monotone of his voice as he gabbled his 
 message, anxious to be done with it and breaking her 
 heart. 
 
 "He wouldn't do it," she said at length. 
 
 "You can't tell," said her husband. "He may. 
 And then you'll have to give way to threats instead 
 of to prayers." 
 
 "I won't give in," said the mother, with a sudden 
 rush of energy. "I won't. F won't. If he does 
 that ... I'll never see him again." 
 
 "One minute," said Monsieur Duvernoy, "remem- 
 ber it's for me, not for you, to say yes or no." 
 
 A new terror had crept into the mother's life. She 
 might now be attacked by her own husband. 
 
 "You won't do it, you won't do it," she screamed, 
 as she clutched him by the arm. 
 
 "Gently, gently," said her husband, pulling his 
 arm away. He was a little frightened. "Of course, 
 Marthe, of course ... I always consult you, I won't 
 consent until you do." 
 
2 so THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 She felt a little safer. Still, she wanted to secure 
 her victory. Far into the night they talked, weigh- 
 ing chances and policies. They planned to draw a 
 veil over the past, to maintain business relations, for 
 the railway case must not be lost, while reducing 
 social intercourse with the Bernays to a minimum. 
 And a nice girl with money must be found for Henri ; 
 then it would be all right. There was nothing else 
 to be done; an hour after a slight but regular snore 
 informed Madame Duvernoy that her husband had 
 gone to sleep, she found herself whispering, "I won't 
 consent, I won't, I won't ! Never ! " 
 
 But, next morning, when she woke up, she was 
 frightened by the acid taste that filled her mouth, by 
 her red and swollen eyes. She had wept. 
 
PART III 
 
CHAPTER THE FIRST 
 
 TROIS ANS APR^S 
 
 Henri was getting fat. The enemy of the French 
 youth is not the wrinkle, nor even the deadly pouch 
 under the eye ; it is not the falling hair, it is fat. He 
 was rosy as ever, still blue-eyed, but a terrible, if 
 slight, rotundity had begun to invade his waistcoat, 
 to spoil the fine lines of his wrists. Beyond this and 
 the manlier wealth of his red moustache there was no 
 great change in him. For three years he had feebly 
 warred with his parents, had begged for mercy, wept, 
 at rare intervals stormed and almost threatened, but it 
 was characteristic of him that he had done nothing. 
 He had stagnated, he had maintained desires instead 
 of developing ambitions; he had continued to want 
 Suzanne without formulating any plan culminating 
 in capture. Though the three years had superbly 
 proved the faithfulness of his soul, they had also 
 proved its weakness. His intentions were as water 
 running through his feeble hands. 
 
 Events had no doubt been against him. One year 
 after Henri's twenty-fifth birthday Madame Bernay 
 had despaired of the match; she knew Madame 
 Duvernoy, and realised that she was not likely to be 
 
 253 
 
254 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 beaten by her lovable but weak son. She half 
 sympathised with her too; not that Suzanne's loveli- 
 ness, exaggerated as it was by the maternal eye, did 
 not weigh heavily in the balance, but she had been 
 poor and she was of her nation. Thus she found 
 Madame Duvernoy's attitude was understandable ; she 
 might in like case have herself taken it up. As soon 
 as she realised this she took action, for it would not 
 do to allow Suzanne, then twenty-one, to fritter away 
 her chances, for twenty-one is in France none too 
 young. Besides, the coupling of Suzanne's name with 
 that of Henri was patent though irregular, and drove 
 away possible suitors. With a heavy heart Madame 
 Bernay accepted the national gospel. She did the 
 impossible to avoid the necessity; she asked her hus- 
 band whether he could not by a supreme effort muster 
 even a hundred and fifty thousand francs, and it hurt 
 her to do so when she saw his careworn face grow 
 tenser. He could not do it ; even fifty thousand francs 
 would be a struggle, and he dared not reduce their 
 establishment, for any weakness would ruin his 
 uncertain credit and bring him down to the ground. 
 So Suzanne wept and wore costlier gowns ; and 
 Madame Bernay suffered agony as she forced her to 
 dismiss her lover while she ostentatiously bought 
 from Tiffany the emerald the Princess Volochine had 
 described as "too dear for me." Monsieur Bernay 
 remained faithful to Loulou Lamirale : she was part 
 of his advertising policy. 
 
 Suzanne wept, but Suzanne obeyed. She did not 
 entirely obey; she told Henri that they could not 
 marry, and that he must give her up; but she added 
 that she would never marry any one else. Half-a- 
 dozen letters passed between the etude Berquin and 
 
TROIS ANS APRES 255 
 
 Jeanne Br^guet before the parting was completed, 
 letters full of tears (real staining tears)Abut letters 
 which forged between them more truly tnan ardent 
 protestations an eternal bond. These two were as 
 puppets in the hands of their fighting mothers, feeling 
 more than they thought, and unable to gather enough 
 mental energy to live up to the storm of their senti- 
 ments. They were soft and they were helpless, too, 
 in presence of the traditional law of French society, 
 of which the mother is the queen — the queen in fact 
 as well as in name when the talk is of gold and 
 matings. They had no supporters; the fathers were 
 too busy or too convinced that their wives knew best ; 
 the families were either hostile or quiescent; friends 
 shrugged their shoulders and said that "love was all 
 very well, but still one had to be reasonable." The 
 most powerful of all foes, however, was not material : 
 it was the weight of French tradition which elevates 
 the family and its financial organisation above God 
 and the State, even among those French folk who 
 believe in God. The tradition was their tradition, a 
 thing which had but to breathe on their fine desires to 
 sully them, for they had been brought up within its 
 shadow. And in the shadow they were cold. 
 
 The end of the railway case came soon after the 
 breaking of the unofficial engagement. It had put a 
 good deal of money into Monsieur Duvernoy's pocket 
 while it left Bernay where he was. He had often 
 hoped to draw from the concession enough to give 
 .Suzanne her heart's desire, to gain ease at last; but 
 his case was bad, and, had it not been for his own 
 cleverness, he would have been a loser instead of 
 maintaining his position. After two years of plead- 
 ings and appeals the French Government had 
 
256 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 suddenly intervened, removed the case from the legal 
 to the diplomatic field and summarily settled it by 
 causing the concession to be cancelled, while refunding 
 the Bernay Syndicate its expenses. The case had 
 become a political danger, and, as the Government still 
 had its hands full of the school and church difficulties 
 it had inherited from its predecessor, the foreign field 
 had to be cleared. Bernay said very loudly on the 
 Bourse that he was well rid of the sale affaire, and was 
 to some extent a gainer by the transaction, as he was 
 able to gull some officials and bribe the others when 
 returning his expenses. Still, this did not amount to 
 much. 
 
 The ending of the railway case, however, deeply 
 affected the affairs of the lovers. So long as it lasted 
 the connection between the families was maintained, 
 for it meant fees for Monsieur Duvernoy; moreover 
 Bernay could not get rid of his barrister, as the case 
 had become so complicated that no new man could 
 have taken up the threads. Thus an occasional dinner 
 had to be given, dinners which were made as large 
 and as formal as possible, but still heaven-born oppor- 
 tunities for the lovers to shake hands and to look into 
 each other's eyes. The dropping of the case auto- 
 matically broke the link : Madame Duvernoy no 
 longer attended Madame Bernay's crushes, while 
 Madame Bernay nevermore appeared on Madame 
 Duvernoy's Wednesdays. The lovers met once in 
 five months, at an accidental dance. The parents con- 
 gratulated themselves upon the ending of a bad 
 business. 
 
 When Henri was twenty-seven an attempt was 
 made to marry him to a suitable young girl. She was 
 pretty, elegant, viewed him with no repulsion, and 
 
TROIS ANS APRfes 257 
 
 had a dot of three hundred thousand francs. But 
 Henri refused. 
 
 "What have you got against her?" clatnoured 
 Madame Duvernoy. "She's pretty, her parents are 
 tres bien, she's musical, speaks English." 
 
 "I'm not in love with her," said Henri sulkily. 
 
 "Oh, don't be ridiculous. You'll be very happy 
 together; she is charmante." 
 
 " I agree she is charmante, but I won't marry her." 
 
 Madame Duvernoy found it impossible to move 
 him. Though she could curb his desires she could 
 not vanquish his obstinacy, and with this half-triumph 
 she had to be content. She dared not then ask the 
 reason for his refusal. 
 
 Thus there was a complete deadlock. The families 
 had drifted apart; the lovers, while showing no signs 
 of rebellion, had resolutely settled down to the only 
 course they were capable of adopting resolutely, 
 namely, refusing to move. They had fatally drifted 
 together again through the medium of their letters; 
 then, and more usefully, through Madame Javal. 
 This was Letitia, who had by sheer magnificence of 
 physique and of mental strength conquered the weakly 
 youth who had boasted of her downfall. He pleased 
 the strong girl, this little dark man with the small 
 hands and the weak stomach; she had tempestuously 
 married him on his two hundred and fifty francs a 
 month, made the arrangements for the wedding, 
 selected their evil little flat on the fifth-floor back in 
 the Rue Montenotte, bought the furniture; she had 
 significantly called for Javal on the morning of the 
 wedding, on foot, followed by her meek mother, and 
 energetically marched him to the mairie. Now she 
 was successfully running him by means of judicious 
 
258 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 calls on the wives of his superiors. There was no 
 knowing where Letitia would drive him. The 
 marriage had astonished Henri, for it was against 
 French bourgeois canons that Javal should marry 
 Letitia if it was true that she had not been farouche. 
 Either Javal had lied, or he had been singularly 
 chivalrous, and neither seemed very likely. Henri 
 ended by dismissing the matter from his mind as an 
 over-difficult problem. It never struck him that Javal 
 might have told the truth, and yet that Letitia might 
 have been strong enough to compel him to marry the 
 woman he would consider disgraced because she had 
 yielded to him. Such a conception of a woman's 
 strength could not occur to a weak man. 
 
 Letitia Java:! was the mainstay of the lovers. 
 Suzanne was allowed to go out under her chaperonage 
 and was by her incited to break the rules of the game. 
 Time was found on Sunday afternoons for meetings 
 in the cheap salon in the Rue Montenotte ; but, sweet 
 as they were made by the holding of hands and even 
 by shy kisses, they always took place under the 
 vigilant eye of Letitia, whose ideas of propriety were 
 shadowy, but whose views of the advisable were 
 definite. She never left the lovers, rallied them on 
 their want of spirit, but saw to it that their transgres- 
 sions should not go far. They were happy thus in 
 their feebleness, in their mollusc-like tendency to 
 remain where they were. If Letitia had not been a 
 woman, therefore a creature for whom sex is every- 
 thing, her strong soul would never have tolerated their 
 formless purposes. 
 
 But events were hurrying on. Suzanne was twenty- 
 three, and had not once been sought in marriage. An 
 attempt made by Monsieur Bernay had only resulted 
 
TRQiS ANS APR^S 259 
 
 in the apparition of a Jewish remisier whom Madame 
 Bernay had refused to consider. 
 
 "Well," her husband had snapped, "what do you 
 expect for fifty thousand francs ? " 
 
 She had shrugged her shoulders, as if full of dis- 
 dain, but her heart was very sore when she looked 
 at Suzanne's dark eyes, her parted red lips, and 
 wondered whether all this grace must wither like a 
 flower that becometh not fruit. When the inevitable 
 shock of discovery had come and she heard that her 
 daughter was meeting Henri at the Javals' she was at 
 heart relieved : it was a desperate affair, and it ruined 
 the girl's chances, but while the young couple loved 
 there was hope. Still, she had to speak severely to 
 Letitia. 
 
 "I don't see what you're complaining about," said 
 Letitia brutally; " nobody, wants her. You can't buy 
 her a man." 
 
 Madame Bernay winced. " I beg you, Letitia, don't 
 speak like that. Poor girls marry as well as rich. 
 You, for instance." 
 
 " I ? Yes, I saw my man and I took him. I believe 
 in force, and took him by force. You may say he 
 isn't much. . . ." 
 
 "Oh ... I didn't . . ." 
 
 "No, you thought. You're right, I'm not offended. 
 But I'm going to make something of him by knock- 
 ing down the others. Now Suzanne is different, she 
 has no courage to act with, but she'll stand a lot, and 
 if she sticks to Henri and he to her they'll win." 
 
 " But will they ? " asked Madame Bernay. " If they 
 do hold together for two or three years more and 
 still refuse to give in Suzanne will never marry." 
 
 "Well, she needn't. She doesn't deserve to be 
 s 2 
 
26o THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 happy if she can't fight. But don't worry : Suzanne 
 is a' worm and Henri an imbecile ; those people always 
 stick because they daren't move. I've preached revolt 
 to Henri ten times, told him to marry Suzanne on 
 two hundred and fifty francs a month (he's had a rise), 
 as I did . . ." 
 
 "Oh, I couldn't allow that," said Madame Bernay. 
 
 "You could if you had to," said Letitia savagely. 
 "I didn't ask my mother for leave." 
 
 Madame Bernay had sighed helplessly. This strong 
 woman, her obstinate daughter, her busy husband 
 and his embarrassments, the lack of suitors, all this 
 was too much for her. So she said no more, and, 
 with the others, went adrift. 
 
 II 
 
 There are crises in courtships as there are in 
 storms. They come, and often end without damag- 
 ing anything, but still the sea has been lashed until it 
 showed that it could destroy if a ship were driven out 
 of her course by the gale. A crisis such as this 
 occurred when Henri was twenty-eight and another 
 attempt was made to expel by a suitable marriage the 
 disturbing past. The selection of the girl was made 
 with very great care; she was everything that was 
 desirable, and, besides, everything that the earlier 
 aspirant had been : here Madame Duvernoy showed 
 that she understood the masculine heart, for the girl 
 was tall, slim and dark. The mother traded a! little 
 on the tendency of men to love a type rather than a 
 woman; she knew instinctively that men have blind 
 preferences for certain combinations of form and 
 
TROIS ANS APRfeS 261 
 
 manner, and that they generally fall under their sway 
 whenever they are confronted with them. There was 
 hope too, for Henri had openly admired Madeleine 
 Arnaud, and this encouraged Madame Duvernoy to 
 take the necessary steps with the Arnaud family. The 
 Arnauds were quite agreeable; they thought that 
 Henri was a nice young man, hardly likely to be 
 notoriously unfaithful to his wife (a little would not 
 matter); the fortunes were both fair. As for that 
 unfortunate affair with Suzanne, Madame Duvernoy 
 assured them that this was all over, mere calf-love. 
 Thus armed she decided to attack Henri. 
 
 "What do you think of Madeleine Arnaud?" she 
 asked suddenly, as her son sat near the dining-room 
 window, looking out vacuously over the black roofs 
 into the pale winter sky. 
 
 '•^Madeleine Arrtaud ? Oh, she's a nice girl. Pretty, 
 too, very pretty." 
 
 Madame Duvernoy watched him from under her 
 brows. 
 
 "Yes," she said, "very pretty. They say she's had 
 five offers, and yet she's only twenty-one." 
 
 "Oh?" Henri's tone was not that of a jealous 
 admirer. 
 
 "And no wonder. It's not only that she's what 
 she is, tall, slim, dark, so elegant too; she's got a 
 good dot, two hundred and fifty thousand francs and 
 expectations. Not that that's everything." 
 
 " No ? " There was a suspicion of a raised eyebrow 
 the mother did not like. 
 
 "No, not everything. Still, it's very nice, very 
 necessary. Besides, she's bien elevee, intelligent, oh, 
 very intelligent; she's musical, tres artiste they say, 
 and . . . musical." 
 
262 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 "Oh yes, I'm sure she's very nice." Henry spoke 
 airily; he remembered that another girl had been 
 described to him like this, and it had prefaced a 
 suggestion that he should marry her. 
 
 "She's charming," Madame Duvernoy resumed, 
 "she speaks English." 
 
 Then Henri knew that he was being proposed to, 
 a:nd shifted in his chair as if he were about to get up 
 and leave the room. His mother realised his embar- 
 rassment, and at once attacked him. 
 
 " Have you thought about her at all ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 "Thought about her? No, of course not. I've 
 danced with her two or three times; we've played 
 tennis once; there's nothing to think about." 
 
 "Oh, don't be absurd, Henri, you know what I 
 mean. Have you ever thought she'd be ai charming 
 wife ? " 
 
 "I may have ... I haven't thought of a man." 
 
 The two looked at each other like duellists about 
 to thrust. Both knew that the next word would open 
 the struggle, and both were afraid, enveloped their 
 thoughts, feinted to gain ground and time. 
 
 "Well," said Madame Duvernoy at length, "why 
 don't you? Oh, don't interrupt me," she added 
 precipitately, "don't be impetuous and silly. You'll 
 have to marry some day, and Madeleine is charming, 
 in every way quite the right girl, young, pretty,, 
 musical ; she will be smart when she is married, and 
 you'll buy a fine practice in Paris with her dot. 
 Besides, she likes you." 
 
 " Oh, does she ? " Henri could not feel offended, 
 for the girl recalled Suzanne. She had something 
 of her colouring and carriage ; indeed, his hunted soul 
 
TROIS ANS APRES 263 
 
 suddenly prompted him to say "yes " so that he might 
 take refuge in the arms of Madeleine. They would 
 be gentle, perhaps loving, if it was true that already 
 she liked him. To say "Yes" would end the 
 horrible tenseness which had made life a burden 
 for three years. But, as he was about to speak 
 and say the desperate non-committal thing which 
 would" commit him, he rallied his energies and said 
 bluntly — 
 
 "No." 
 
 "No what?" 
 
 "I won't marry her." 
 
 "You won't marry her? Why won't you marry 
 her? Isn't she good enough for you? Isn't she' 
 everything you could want ? " Madame Duvefnoy's 
 voice rose to a scream. "You're ungra:teful, you're a 
 bad son, you don't respect me, you don't give me the 
 affection you owe me. Oh, I'm so unhappy; I'm 
 so unhappy." There were sobs in her voice now. 
 
 "Maman," said Henri huskily, "I'm sorry, I 
 can't." 
 
 "Why can't you? Surely you're not thinking of 
 that old affair. That's impossible. I forbid it, and 
 besides, it's all over." 
 
 "It's not." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " An awful fear had shot 
 through her. 
 
 "I'll never give her up." 
 
 "Oh . . ." Madame Duvernoy felt reassured. 
 "Well, what's the use of that? Give her up or not, 
 you know quite well we won't consent. So thjere's an 
 end of it. You'd do better to be sensible and talk 
 about Madeleine." 
 
 "It's no use talking about Madeleine. She's a nice 
 
264 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 girl and si pretty girl, but I'm not in love with her, 
 and I can't marry her ; and understand, maman, that 
 I won't marry her." 
 
 There were some minutes of silence during which 
 they did not look at each other. Henri gazed miser- 
 ably at the pale sky, while his mother, a little fright- 
 ened by his violence, nervously rolled her handker- 
 chief into a ball. Then she decided to return to the 
 charge. 
 
 "You're making me so unhappy. I had hoped so 
 much, Henri. I thought of you as you are now 
 twenty-eight years ago ; I thought you would grow up 
 handsome and charming, and win prizes at school, 
 and be well conducted in the army . . ." 
 "Well, I didn't disappoint you, did I?" 
 "No, not then. You were a good boy, but now . . . 
 now. You see, Henri, I wanted to think of you too 
 marrying a: nice girl, bien dlevee, with some money, 
 and getting on in a good practice, and knowing nice 
 people, and having one or say two children, to 
 remind me of you when you were small." 
 
 The mother and the son looked at each other sorrow- 
 fully. They stood face to face gazing at the same 
 dream; both wanted almost the same things, home, 
 peace, ease and love, but they could not agree as to 
 the earthly instrument. They were joined by it and 
 parted ; their similar interests were hopelessly divergent 
 and they could not converge, for the desire of the son 
 was for freedom, the right to use life and waste it if 
 he chose in the pursuit of joy ; the desire of the mother 
 to protect him, to make his way secure and to defend 
 him against the temptation which might import into 
 his life the slightest element of danger. She might 
 play with her own happiness, but his she must secure 
 
TKOIS ANS APRfiS 265 
 
 according to her lights, lights which she must think 
 of as radiant. 
 
 "Maman," said Henri at length, "you could have 
 all that. If you let me marry Suzanne." 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Why won't you ? " Henri asKed suddenly. "What 
 have you against her ? Have you ever heard a word 
 against her? Ever seen or heard her do anything to 
 make you . . . blush ? " 
 
 "No, no, I didn't say that . . . only . . ." 
 
 " Well, then ? Why ? Money, I suppose, always 
 money. I'm sick of money, of the sacrifice of every- 
 thing for moliey. Money's your God, everybody's 
 God. Well, I don't believe in it, and I'm not going 
 to bow to it." 
 
 " How ? " The mother breathed rather fast ; the 
 turning of the tables on her was discomposing. 
 
 "Oh . . . I don't know. Anyhow, I won't marry 
 Madeleine, and I won't marry anybody . . . except 
 Suzanne." 
 
 "You shall not marry her. I forbid it. Bernay is 
 a rogue, and everybody knows it." 
 
 "I don't care if he is. He wasn't too much of a 
 rogue for us to ask him to dinner." 
 
 " Henri ! " said Madame Duvernoy in a scandalised 
 tone, "you forget that was a' matter of business. One 
 has to do things like that ; it's not nice, of course, but 
 a barrister's business is so social. You mustn't be 
 ridiculous, chevaleresque, all that ; you might as well 
 say that you wouldn't defend a man unless you 
 thought he was in the right." 
 
 " I don't say that." His mother's sudden flanking 
 movement and the involution of his professional 
 ethics had broken his rush. "Anyhow, I don't care," 
 
266 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 he resumed lamely, "it's his daughter I want, not 
 him. And I'll have her." 
 
 "Perhaps she won't have you. No," Madame 
 Duvernoy pursued with joyful cruelty, "three years is 
 a long time. It's all right when you're married; you 
 get a habit, which is just as good as love, but it's 
 different when you don't meet." 
 
 Henri was entrapped. He must either agree that 
 Suzanne might have forgotten him, or confess that 
 he frequently met her and was assured of her love. 
 Struggling for expression he blustered. "No," he 
 found himself saying trenchantly, "she hasn't for- 
 gotten me. She's waiting for me. She's the only 
 girl I ever loved, and the only one I'll ever love, and 
 I'll marry her yet." 
 
 "Henri!" 
 
 "Yes, I will. I won't be driven and bullied." 
 
 "I'm not bullying you." 
 
 His angry eyes were very threatening. 
 
 "Yoii are. You're trying to make me marry 
 Madeleine Arnaud. I wouldn't have her if she had 
 Rothschild's millions. I won't be bullied. And I'll 
 marry whom I like." 
 
 He rose from his chair and strode about the room. 
 
 "I've been patient long enough, and the time has 
 come for . . . well, I will have her. I'm not a child, 
 I've got a right to my own way — I'm twenty-eight . . . 
 I . . . I'll . . ." 
 
 The door slammed behind him. Madame Duvernoy 
 shivered. What had he said ? What had he meant ? 
 
CHAPTER THE SECOND 
 
 LA FORTUNE 
 I 
 
 Grandfather Lacour was a very wise man. When 
 he reached Paris in i860 with his rosary, his scapu- 
 lary, his eleven napoleons and his grandmother's 
 amethyst brooch, he thought it better to marry so as 
 to have his mind free from sentiment and concen- 
 trated on his work. He married most judiciously a 
 demoiselle Remain, some ten years his senior and the 
 co-owner with hei' sister of a lace-shop in the Rue de 
 Rivoli. His wife retained a small interest in the 
 business which her sister carried on, but she soon 
 had reason to regret that she had abandoned it for 
 her husband's "Fers de France," however prosperous 
 the latter were. For in the heyday of the Second 
 Empire, when no Hohenzollern had yet appeared to 
 shift the Vosges to the Pyrenees, one morning the 
 Emperor and his consort came driving by. A trace 
 broke, the imperial couple alighted and Mademoiselle 
 Romain's fortune was made. For the Imp^ratrice 
 Eugenie said — 
 
 "Ah, la belle dentelle," and invested on the spot 
 five napoleons. After that Mademoiselle Romain 
 sold lace at outrageous prices to everybody who was 
 somebody, to Mrs. Thackeray, to Lady Beaconsfield, 
 
 267 
 
268 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 to Taglioni and the corps de ballet, to Madame 
 Bazaine and the Duchesse d'Aumale. As she was 
 given to smuggling her profits were very large, so 
 large that, as she lived all through the years in one 
 room with sham flower-pots and an odorous poodle, 
 she was able to retire in 1873 to a villa at Argenteuil. 
 There she tried in vain to grow asparagus, and was 
 very happy with the poodle. As it was understood 
 that she had a good deal of money and was not likely 
 to marry, little Marthe Lacour and her brother who 
 was to be a dragoon were regularly taken to call on 
 their aunt. She gave them every time three cerises 
 a I'eau de vie, every half-year twenty francs each, and 
 every Easter Day a devotional book. 
 
 All went admirably until, one sunny day in 1876, 
 Mademoiselle Romain informed her brother-in-law 
 that her poodle (a successor of the others, odorous too) 
 had developed a distressing complaint; namely, 
 worms. She did not veil the matter, as a discreet 
 Anglo-Saxon or New England spinster would have 
 done. The dog, she said, had worms. The dog was 
 a sale cochon. Also she loved him more than life. 
 Then she abundantly wept. Old Lacour was a busi- 
 ness man ; no one better than he understood pots and 
 pans and tacks and needles and rolling stock. But 
 he thought he understood dogs. 
 
 "Raw meat," he said briefly, "that'll settle it." 
 The poodle was fed on raw meat. A fortnight 
 later Lacour received a letter saying that the dog 
 had another complaint. The vet. said it was eczema 
 and that the raw meat had done it. Old Lacour, she 
 went on, was a brute and a fool, didn't know what he 
 was talking about and had done it on purpose. 
 Protests availed nothing, for the eczema having begun 
 
LA FORTUNE 269 
 
 refused to stop ; it spread ; the dog became so odorous 
 that even his mistress noticed it. At last the disease 
 spread so successfully all over him that the vet. had 
 to shoot him, while Mademoiselle Romain wept and 
 screamed in the attic. 
 
 After that there were no more visits from the Lacour 
 children, no more tips, cerises a I'eau de vie or devo- 
 tional books. Her brother-in-law, she declared, was 
 a bandit, a brigand, a Republicain. She would never 
 see him again. She would give up dogs. She would 
 take up with the Jesuits, She effected the exchange, 
 fell into high devotion and, by the time Henri was 
 twenty-eight, had become a legend of the Lacour 
 family. It was assumed that she would leave her 
 money to the Jesuits, and she would probably have 
 done so if, at the age of ninety-one, she had not made 
 an original discovery. It was the first she had ever 
 made and a most unfortunate, for she suddenly found 
 after an ill-fated experiment that she returned from 
 Lourdes with an attack of rheumatism greater than 
 the one she took there. She had caught cold and, 
 being anxious at once to fix responsibilities on the 
 proper people, tore up the will that endowed the 
 Jesuits, and after casting about for available relations, 
 found that she hated the memory of all of them. 
 Henri Duvernoy alone she knew of as a nice little 
 prize-winning boy : she made him her heir and, 
 having revenged herself on the Jesuits, peacefully 
 died. 
 
 II 
 
 Henri looked at himself in the hall wardrobe mirror. 
 He saw a rather stout and florid young man, fairly 
 
270 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 smart, not bad-looking. But he was not thinking of 
 his appearance : he was merely gazing at the picture 
 of the young possessor of three hundred thousand 
 francs. It was not, he reflected, a very vast sum, 
 say nine thousand francs a year. Still there it was ; 
 a nice little bit of capital, and the interest added 
 to his salary would bring up his independent income 
 to about twelve thousand francs a year. He rather 
 glowed, he wondered whether everybody knew that 
 he had three hundred thousand francs ; if not, they 
 ought to know. But would it be delicate to tell them ? 
 This was rather a worrying idea, for of course it would 
 not do to brag of his wealth. So Henri chose the 
 indirect method of tipping, for unaccustomed' tipping 
 would arouse interest and then the wonderful truth 
 would leak out. The tipping did arouse interest the 
 very same day. 
 
 "Henri," said Madame Duvernoy, with some 
 severity, "why did you give twenty francs to each of 
 the servants ? " 
 
 "Oh, just because I've inherited some money, 
 ma-man, I seldom give them anything.' 
 
 "Well, why should you ? You'll have to give them 
 something in three weeks, for the New Year. It's 
 sheer waste. And thirty francs to the concierge! 
 how could you do such a thing? You know quite 
 well that we only give him forty francs on New Year's 
 Day; you'll make him expect more, fifty francs, per- 
 haps sixty. Really you are ridiculous." 
 
 "Monsieur est capitaliste," sneered Monsieur 
 Duvernoy, "he casts patronage over the poor as the 
 sun casts light over the earth." He was furious; he 
 hated the idea of his son having money, such a lot 
 of money and for nothing. 
 
LA FORTUNE 271 
 
 Henri did not attempt to justify himself ; he dared 
 not, for to have told the whole truth would have been 
 impossible. He had been doing dreadful things. 
 Immediately on going out he had hailed a taxi and 
 tipped the amazed chauffeur a franc. He had walked 
 up the Rue Auber and the Boulevards with the con- 
 fidence of an English Lord ; he had suddenly realised 
 that he would never buy another tie at Le Sport, nor 
 a suit at Cook's. He had at last done the thing he 
 had wanted to do for years : he had walked into 
 Delion's, smoking an expensive imported Three 
 Castles cigarette, and bought a top-hat for twenty- 
 eight francs. It was delicious and terrible. Lastly, 
 and this would probably prove still more terrible, he 
 had called in at Marquis's and ordered for his mother 
 two pounds of costly chocolates in a pink satin hand- 
 painted bag. 
 
 For two days he had very mixed weather; he was 
 either buying things he had never known himself to 
 want, or getting into trouble for buying them. Buy- 
 ing had suddenly become a passion with him ; within 
 a week he had completely renewed his clothes, and 
 for the first time in his life ordered twelve shirts at a 
 time ; he had met Jacques Sorel while buying coloured 
 under-clothes at Tremlett's. 
 
 "Ah, ah," said Sorel, as he smiled with his wide 
 mouth and inclined his yellow head, "mauve under- 
 clothes ... we know what that means. Still, 
 Duvernoy, you shouldn't, you really shouldn't; 
 you're too fair for mauve. Try pink, like me. Now, 
 when I wear anything but pink or light blue . . ." 
 
 Sorel compromised several honoured names. 
 
 "I don't mind," said Henri stoutly, "I'm not a 
 dandy in my under-clothes." 
 
272 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 "You should be. That's the time or never. Now 
 Pervenche, his latest idea is white with coloured 
 flowers, as if he were tattooed. C'est passionnant! " 
 
 "White is too expensive," said Henri, "you've got 
 to change too often." 
 
 Sorel sniffed at this detestably bourgeois remark. 
 Still Henri had gone up in his estimation. After all 
 Tremlett was Tremlett. Henri was getting on. And 
 Henri, realising this very fully, liked him for the 
 first time in his life. 
 
 in 
 
 "Henri," said Monsieur Duvernoy, "what have you 
 done with your money?" 
 
 "It's at the Credit Lyonnais just now until . . . 
 until I invest it." He consciously swelled as he spoke 
 the sacred words. 
 
 "Hum. Have you thought of how you'd invest 
 it?" asked the father. He hated the conversation, 
 for after all it was not his money ; it was almost an 
 enemy's money. Still, money it was, lovely money,' 
 power, chinking, delicious power. It fascinated him 
 as if he could see it in a big golden heap. 
 
 "Well ... yes ... I have a little." Henri had 
 thought of it a good deal but was in a great mess. 
 He had bought La Cote and the Cote de la 
 Bourse et de la Banque, but they had not helped 
 him much; the extraordinary differences between 
 quotations of Spanish Fours and Portuguese and 
 Argentines left him wondering, while French Rails, 
 their incomprehensible actiorts de jouissance, and the 
 yet more obscure Rand Mines marked five shillings 
 
LSTFORTUNE 273 
 
 on one side and two hundred francs on the other 
 left him floundering in a morass. 
 
 "I ... I had thought of Rente," he said at length, 
 as importantly as he could. 
 
 "You won't lose your money," said Monsieur 
 Duvernoy, with an almost kindly smile, for the sug- 
 gestion seemed agreeably idiotic, "but I think you 
 might do better." 
 
 "Oui, papa?" 
 
 "Yes, I could get you mortgages, four per cent, 
 easily, five perhaps." 
 
 "Oh ! " Henri thought and disliked the idea. He 
 did not want his father to handle his money. He did 
 not distrust his father : still, he liked managing his 
 own money. If he didn't it wouldn't be his money. 
 Henri was just above the level of those who want to 
 keep their fortune in a drawer and, in fact, had already 
 constituted two little hoards, one of a hundred francs 
 in gold, in the toe of an old boot, and another of 
 thirty francs in silver behind the reposeful volumes 
 of Victor Hugo's complete works in his bedroom. 
 
 " Is that safe ? " he asked at last. 
 
 "Quite safe, of course not very easy to realise at 
 ariy moment." 
 
 "I don't want my money locked up," said Henri, 
 seizing his opportunity to escape. 
 
 "Well, then you must buy stocks and shares, but 
 be careful. They're not all good." 
 
 "I shall ask a financial paper," said Henri at last. 
 
 "You can ask a financial paper," said Monsieur 
 Duvernoy savagely, "and they'll plug you with any- 
 thing some rotten bank happens to be underwriting, 
 Russians, anything." 
 
 " Oh 1 " Henri thought that the path of wealth was 
 
 T 
 
274 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 very uneven. Still, he wasn't the kind of man to be 
 diddled, he reflected. "Will they? But I'm not 
 going to buy anything they say. I'm going to buy 
 foreign loans and . . . Ville de Paris." 
 
 "Ville de Paris," Monsieur Duvernoy shouted, 
 "but you are idiotic, Henri. They pay you two and a 
 half per cent, and . . . but surely you don't think 
 you'll win a prize ? " 
 
 "How do you know? Somebody does." 
 
 "Yes, one in a million. Now, be reasonable and 
 let me do it for you." 
 
 But the blunt suggestion made Henri quite 
 obstinate. No, he was going to do it himself ; at last 
 his father, feeling that another word would com- 
 promise him, called him an espece d'imbecile and left 
 the room. 
 
 An interview with the branch manager of Javal's 
 agence resulted in a delirious purchase of stock. 
 Advised by him he spread his fortune evenly over 
 Spanish Fours, French Threes, Argentine Fours and 
 Turkish Fours, two hundred ordinary shares of the 
 Nord railway and some Lombards ; this, the manager 
 assured him, was so international as to enable him 
 to look forward with equanimity to war and pestilence. 
 But Henri was bent also on his small gamble and 
 purchased ten Panama bonds, ten Ville de Paris 
 bonds and ten obligations communales of the 
 Cr6dit Foncier. On these, thanks to the reduction 
 of interest to an average of two and a half per cent, 
 (except in the case of the Panama, which yielded 
 nothing), he stood to win anything between a hundred 
 francs and five hundred thousand. These lottery 
 bonds filled him with delight, for the bank had, to 
 please him, sent out to the nearest money-changer's 
 
LA FORTUNE 275 
 
 office and bought them for cash. They were quite 
 lovely, the red and yellow Panamas, the purple 
 "Communales" and the elaborately decorated Ville 
 de Paris ; their fateful numbers were going to be a 
 great source of excitement, for the drawings were so 
 arranged as to happen on an average every month. 
 Besides, he could lose nothing. It was a typically 
 French investment. 
 
 "Well," said Javal a little bitterly, "are you 
 pleased ? " 
 
 "Pleased! I don't know what to say. I feel so 
 independent, as if I didn't care for anything, I . . ." 
 He stopped abruptly, realising that poor little Javal 
 and his Letitia had not between them as much capital 
 as he would draw every year as an income. This 
 suddenly struck him as horrible and extraordinary. 
 "I . . . will you come to the theatre with me to- 
 night ? both of you ? " he asked rather lamely. 
 
 Javal sighed, then accepted the peace-offering. 
 Letitia loved the play. There was a piece she wanted 
 to see. . . . Javal sniggered and whispered . . . 
 Henri blushed and then recaptured himself. Hang it 
 all, he must remember that he was a man ... a 
 man of the world ... all that. 
 
 IV 
 
 The episode of Henri's investment cast a coldness 
 over the household. Madame Duvernoy kept up for 
 two days the pretence that she too was gravely 
 offended, but the money haunted her; she could 
 hardly think of anything beyond that money; she 
 conjured up horrible ideas of Henri buying the wrong 
 
 T 2 
 
276 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 thing, investing in Costa Ricas, or in the shares of 
 some dying boot factory. At last she had to question 
 him, and, when she recited the list to her husband, 
 was assured that it was quite sound; indeed there 
 was no flaw in it, except those absurd lottery bonds. 
 Fortunately they were quite safe, even if they wasted 
 a good half per cent. The upshot was that Madame 
 Duvernoy's respect for her son increased; he was 
 impractical in love, but he might be a financial genius. 
 Besides, the lottery bonds hypnotised her; at heart 
 she loved lottery bonds; she had a delicious secret 
 about lottery bonds. 
 
 "I say, Henri," she remarked, "about your lottery 
 bonds." 
 
 " Oui, maman" said Henri suspiciously. He had 
 been a good deal bullied about those beastly invest- 
 ments. 
 
 " Have you got hold of a list of drawn numbers ? " 
 
 " Drawn ? What do you mean ? There's been no 
 drawing yet." 
 
 "I mean unclaimed prizes. Perhaps one of your 
 bonds was drawn long ago with a prize. Perhaps 
 the money-changer didn't check them." Mother and 
 son looked at one another with shining eyes; it was 
 an exciting idea. 
 
 "Oh," said Henri, "I must get a list and see. 
 Yes." 
 
 "You needn't," his mother whispered; "I've got 
 one." 
 
 "You? Why?" 
 
 Madame Duvernoy laughed. "Don't tell your 
 father, but I, I too, I've got a few." 
 
 Henri burst out laughing. His rigid father har- 
 boured two gamblers, then; his mother had fifteen 
 
LA FORTUNE 277 
 
 Panamas and some old bonds of the 1889 ExhiSition. 
 As they pored together (in vain) over the lists of 
 unclaimed prizes, a feeling of friendliness such as had 
 abandoned them for over three years seemed about 
 to return. Henri realised that his mother was still 
 young, that she enjoyed being naughty and defying 
 her husband's principles. And she, how dear she 
 would hold him ... if only that terrible attachment 
 were not there. 
 
 Generally speaking, in those last days of December 
 Henri's was a happy life. He had not yet begun to 
 see clearly how his position in the world was modified, 
 how his relation with Suzanne might suddenly 
 undergo a revolution. In a sense he knew that his 
 position had greatly changed, that he had become 
 independent, and could, if he chose, at once buy the 
 practice which would make him a solid and considered 
 avoue. But independence, which rushes in upon 
 nimble minds like a flood and sweeps them away, did 
 not so powerfully sway him ; it was for him evolution 
 rather than revolution. He had passed the stage of 
 wanting to tell everybody he was rich; already the 
 habit of wealth was upon him, and cooled his enthu- 
 siasm, cooled it enough for him to understand that 
 Rothschild and Lebaudy were richer than he. He 
 had passed the stage of fierce tipping ; soon he would 
 buy hats and boots and stalls at the Gymnase without 
 any sense of adventure. He had related his money 
 to all these material things, and had found them 
 commonplace; Suzanne alone had not been clearly 
 associated in his mind with the fact, obvious to any 
 but he, that he need no longer trouble about his 
 parents, but could marry her in the face of the world's 
 opposition. Nothing of this had been forniulated in 
 
278 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 his brain with any degree of lucidity; he was too 
 weak, too dependent, enslaved by twenty-eight years 
 of maternal discipline and an aeon of tradition. If the 
 thought was there at all, it was there as a background, 
 misty and grey, which the .black and definite figures 
 of his father and mother overpowered as they passed 
 in front of it. It was left to the vigorous Letitia to 
 stimulate his imagination. She was glad, intimately 
 glad, not jealous, as was her husband, or depressed, 
 when she contrasted her lot with that of Suzanne and 
 Henri. It was not that she did not desire wealth or 
 ease; indeed, she wanted them as much as any 
 Parisian woman : she would have liked to have a 
 motor-car, to buy six-hundred-franc hats from 
 Georgette, to indulge in the alrhost Eastern luxury 
 which is dear to the Parisian heart. But she also 
 had the fine common sense which, curiously, goes 
 with these violent desires. She knew that her husband 
 was a man of medium ability, and could not feel sure 
 of pushing him higher in the world than a branch 
 managership of the Credit Lyonnais ; this would mean 
 anything between seven and fifteen thousand francs 
 a year — in no case wealth as Paris understands the 
 word ; apart from this, which she was ready to accept 
 as being the inevitable, she knew that she was fond 
 of Javal without ardour, that his indecision appealed 
 to her energy, and his physical weakness to her fine 
 brute strength. She was the man in their marriage, 
 and as such had to practise mental discipline. 
 
 What Madame Javal felt for herself, however, she 
 did not feel for Suzanne, the playmate who was, after 
 all, nothing but a charming child. There was no force 
 in Suzanne, nothing but delicacy : thus she needed 
 helping and protecting ; she could not make her mar- 
 
LA FORTUNE 279 
 
 riage, tear from fate's hard hands a shred of joy ; so 
 those who loved her most must help her to enjoy the 
 fruits of battle, without driving her, reluctant and 
 half beaten, into the bloody ring. Letitia Javal 
 wanted to see this couple come together; she did not 
 respect Henri, but, as Suzanne loved him, she wanteji 
 him for her. Not only did she feel that she was 
 Suzanne's big sister, but the obscure instinct that is 
 in women, old, young, joyful, or rejected of men, 
 bade her use every effort so that the lovers could 
 marry and fulfil its ruthless purpose. It thrilled her 
 to think of Suzanne as wedding this weak young man 
 — for it was a wedding, after all — as it thrilled her to 
 read of men shooting their wives' lovers, of women 
 vitrioling men who had forsaken them, of gorgeous 
 suicides caused by love. For all of it was mating, 
 and Letitia, a true woman, was the spirit of mating 
 on earth. For her the situation was simple enough, 
 so simple that she frontally attacked Henri on Christ- 
 mas Day. It was a holiday, though of no importance 
 in France except for the children, who place their 
 shoes on the hearth for le petit Noel to fill. (Santa 
 Claus does not call in France, but sends in his stead 
 a pretty golden-haired child.) 
 
 "Well," she said suddenly, as she threw herself 
 back in the rep arm-chair, the best the Rue Monte- 
 notte fiat possessed, "what are you going to do now 
 you're rich, Henri ? " 
 
 "Oh, I'm not exactly rich." 
 
 "No, not exactly, except that you've got just about 
 four times as much to marry on as we had." 
 
 "Marry? . . . Oh, I don't say it isn't enough, if 
 Suzanne agrees." 
 
 "Suzanne? Oh, mon pauvre Henri, as jf Suzanne 
 
28o THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 wouldn't agree to marry you on anything. She'd 
 have married you three years ago on your two 
 hundred francs a month, and you've wasted those 
 years." 
 
 "Yes, I know," said Henri hurriedly. "I would 
 have, too, only I couldn't." 
 
 "You could have, if you had chosen. One always 
 can. Look at me ! Oh, you may say I wasn't accus- 
 tomed to luxury like you two, though that's no argu- 
 ment, for I was a hanger-on, and hangers-on are at 
 heart fonder of wealth than the rich, or they wouldn't 
 stand what they do. But never mind my history. 
 The question is : Are you going to marry Suzanne, 
 say next month ? " 
 
 "Next month?" Henri gasped. "But how? . . . 
 But my mother . . . you know what she says . . . 
 she won't agree." 
 
 "Tell your mother to mind her own business. 
 Inform her that you intend to marry Suzanne — well, 
 let us say on the thirty-first of January. That'll give 
 us five weeks for the trousseau. As you can afford 
 a honeymoon, I recommend Italy; you may not be 
 able to afford it later on." 
 
 Henri looked at Letitia with amazed eyes. He felt 
 driven, overwhelmed. There was the whole plan laid 
 before him in fifty words. Still, it wouldn't happen 
 just like that — there were difficulties — however fas- 
 cinating it all was. 
 
 "But . . . but my mother won't consent." 
 
 "Good. Ask her once and for all. She declines. 
 You go out and tell the huissier to call next morning 
 and summons her. He does so, once, twice, three 
 times. Then off to the mairie, up with the banns. 
 Little ceremony. Paternal speech by the maire. All 
 
LA FORTUNE 281 
 
 Over. If Suzanne likes, fifty francs wasted on a 
 calotin to mumble a prayer over you. Voilh." 
 
 Henri was silent for a moment. He did not under- 
 stand the reason for the glow in Letitia's eyes, her 
 heightened colour. The fighting policy did not 
 stimulate him as it did her. It frightened him. 
 
 "I couldn't," he said weakly. "Maman would 
 never forgive me. I must try and bring her round; 
 wait. . . ." 
 
 "Wait," shouted Letitia, as she leapt to her feet 
 and stamped about the little room, "wait, wait, wait 
 until you're old, and waiting's made you so tired of 
 one another that you don't want one another any 
 more; wait until you're bald and she's got lines all 
 over her pretty face; wait until you kiss her like a 
 sister, or until you're dead." 
 
 "I ... I don't mean that. . . ." 
 
 "Then what do you mean? Do you know what 
 you mean ? You mean nothing ; you're afraid." 
 
 " Afraid ? " said Henri in a tone that showed he was 
 nettled. 
 
 "Yes, afraid; afraid of life, afraid of fighting. For 
 it's fighting you've got to do if you want to live. If 
 you haven't the courage to live, you may as well 
 commit suicide, for you're only cumbering the earth. 
 I tell you you've got to fight; you've got to, if you're 
 rich and want fame; you've got to, if you're poor and 
 want money; you've got to, if you're a king and want 
 to marry your chosen, and not a Bourbon with an 
 ugly nose and half-a-dozen hereditary diseases." 
 
 " Yes ... I know . . . but still there is considera- 
 tion . . . there are things one must draw the line 
 at. ..." 
 
 "No. There is no line, except the firing-line, and 
 
282 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 there is no consideration, except for yourself and those 
 you love. But, of course, you don't love Suzanne." 
 
 "What ! " cried Henri. "How can you say I don't 
 love her ? " 
 
 " What will you do for her ? Will you go through 
 fire and water for her, slay dragons, tilt at wind- 
 mills?" 
 
 " Voyons, Letitia, do not be absurd." 
 
 "I am not absurd," said Letitia angrily; "it's you 
 who can't understand me. I'm telling you to imitate 
 Perseus and Don Quixote; I'm telling you to be a 
 modern Perseus, and go out and slay principles, 
 instead of dragons. Go out and kill, or remain and 
 be killed. Your dragons are conventions and cus- 
 toms; they are your own cowardice, which you call 
 affection, your owrl weakness, which you call duty.. 
 But you ignore true affection and true duty, those 
 things you owe to the girl whose love you have 
 gained. You owe her marriage, and you've got to 
 marry her at all costs. You've got to break your 
 mother's opposition, if you've got to break her heart. 
 She's done with ; she's played her part now that you're 
 born and grown up. She doesn't matter. She has 
 no right to live, for she's only hampering you — you, 
 the young man to whom the world belongs." 
 
 Henri was silent for a while; he was deeply 
 shocked. If Letitia had been unmarried, he would 
 have changed the subject as one unfit for a young 
 girl; but she was married, and had rights. 
 
 "Do you mean to say," he asked, "that one owes 
 nothing to one's mother ? " 
 
 "Nothing. You owe life to Nature, of which she 
 is merely the instrument. If you have a debt, it is 
 to your unborn child. Your mother's only a barnacle, 
 
LA FORTUNE 283 
 
 and you're the ship . . . and you know that before 
 a voyage it is customary to scrape the keel." 
 
 "You're very hard, rather cruel, Letitia." 
 
 "I am a lover of life; you are a respecter of death. 
 For yesterday is dead. Your mother is yesterday; 
 you are to-morrow." 
 
 "I begin to understand," said Henri more gently. 
 "I know you've had a hard life, Letitia; that's why 
 you're so harsh." 
 
 "You've had an easy one; that's why you're so 
 soft." 
 
 "Perhaps. Perhaps I am soft. You see, I don't 
 want to hurt my mother; she loves me; she's done 
 everything for me. It seems so cruel to turn away 
 now and do, because I want to, a thing which will 
 make her miserable." 
 
 "Oh, she'll recover. Women get over anything; 
 they've got to." 
 
 "But why should she have to? I can prevent it, 
 and I ought to, for she loves me more than anything 
 in the world." 
 
 "That's the weight you carry, mon pauvre Henri: 
 her love tied round your neck; an exacting affection 
 is nothing but a millstone. Let her love you, and let 
 her suffer. Let her fight for you if she can, that's her 
 r61e; it's for her to frighten you with big words like 
 ' duty ' and ' filial respect, ' to threaten that she will 
 disinherit you, to entrap you into a match of her 
 choosing. That's war, and that's fair; that's life. 
 But you too have a role : to frighten her by threaten- 
 ing never to see her again, to trick her by feigning 
 illness, to break her by defying her, to kill her by 
 cruelty if you must. It's force wins : hatred, cruelty, 
 violence. Not love." 
 
2 84 THE GITY OF LIGHT 
 
 "Ah, love!" said Henri. "It would be so much 
 better, so much sweeter. Your ideal is a hard world, 
 Letitia; I want it full of humanity and love." 
 
 "Sentimental," said Letitia angrily. She had lost 
 the game. 
 
 V 
 
 Henri's interview with Letitia produced but one 
 idea. She had not shaken him, but merely disturbed 
 him ; now and then while she spoke he had been 
 fired by her splendid animalism, for she touched in 
 him a secret chord, the instinct of survival. She 
 stimulated this natural pugnacity, goaded him to sally 
 out and attack out of sheer savagery unoffending as 
 well as offending things. But her violence defeated 
 its object, for he was not ready for life, he had not 
 grasped that it was attained in a struggle, maintained 
 by more struggles and lost in a desperate battle. He 
 was too heavily overlaid by tradition and disciplined 
 by habit; he had for too long taken authority for 
 granted, never seen that when the rights of the soul 
 are menaced insurrection becomes the most sacred of 
 duties. 
 
 On Christmas night he walked aimlessly along the 
 Champs Elysles thinking of Letitia's words and 
 decided that she was wrong, that her gospel of con- 
 test was cruel, unnecessary and certainly improper for 
 a woman to hold. He felt sure that somehow his 
 mother would be brought round, that he would marry 
 Suzanne and that soon they would all live happily 
 together. Still, he felt he ought to do something, 
 approach his mother again, or — and here was a first- 
 
LA FORTUNE 285 
 
 fruit of Letitia's teaching — publish still further his 
 unofficial engagement so as to compromise himself 
 and try to force his mother's hand. But all this was 
 undecisive, and with Letitia's fiery speeches still 
 floating in his brain he suddenly evolved his brilliant 
 idea. He would give Suzanne a present, a really fine 
 present, a crocodile skin dressing-bag, with gold- 
 topped bottles. Then he reflected it would be very 
 dear; on the other hand he could afford it. But, he 
 reflected again, if they married on twelve thousand 
 francs a year she would not need anything so costly. 
 It was, his amiable bourgeois soul decided, waste. 
 He then thought of jewellery, for jewellery was always 
 worth three-quarters of what it cost if you saw to it 
 that you paid mainly for the stones and gold, not for 
 workmanship. Yes, he had it, he would buy her a 
 diamond necklace. He'd show them what stuff he 
 was made of. He wouldn't be bullied. Then fine 
 snow began to fall. Henri hurried home, for it would 
 never do for him to get his feet wet. 
 
 The purchase of the necklace was a delicious affair, 
 an adventure. He resisted his first impulse to ask old 
 Loupil to get him a commission note from his brother 
 the exporter, even though this would procure him a 
 rebate of at least ten per cent. No, he would do the 
 thing properly, go to Tiffany or Cartier. He walked 
 up and down the Rue de la Paix and the Avenue de 
 rOp^ra with a great air, swinging a thirty-franc cane 
 and gazing at the lovely mannequins with novellnso- 
 lence; the pocket-book in his waistcoat owned the 
 neighbourhood. He took his time, inspected the 
 scanty but graceful shows of bracelets, collars and 
 pendants, felt a little rueful in front of a pearl neck- 
 lace every pearl of which would probably cost a couple 
 
286 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 of thousand francs. In a sense it was all too rich for 
 him, which depressed him, and yet accessible, which 
 exhilarated him. At last he entered Cartier's shop, 
 much impressed by its air, half drawing-room and 
 half museum; he was so much impressed that he 
 assumed too much importance and was shown a collar 
 of emeralds which La Belle Otero would not have 
 despised. 
 
 " How much ? " he asked airily. 
 
 "Seventy thousand francs. Monsieur." 
 
 "Oh ! " He was dashed, but his recovery was noble. 
 "No, not that, altogether too . . . too ostentatious. 
 It's for a jeune fille." 
 
 " Certainement, Monsieur," said the assistant, with 
 oily courtesy, as he deftly returned the emeralds to 
 their case and produced a little string of diamonds 
 set in gold. "This, Monsieur, is a charming present 
 for a jeune fille, four thousand francs." He smiled 
 respectfully at his client (at Cartier's there are no 
 "customers"), for he had gauged his means by a 
 single trial shot. 
 
 Henri examined the necklace with the eye of a 
 connaisseur, blew on the stones and then drew them 
 across his sleeve. He knew the etiquette. "Pasmal, 
 pas mal," he muttered; "still, let me see something 
 better." He wasn't going to let Cartier sniff at him. 
 
 For a quarter of an hour he selected and discarded, 
 in his audacity even returning for a while to the 
 emeralds. At last he selected a fairly good necklace 
 made up of twenty white diamonds. It cost eight 
 thousand francs, but seemed a little small among its 
 fellows. It was not until these had been restored to 
 their cases that Henri realised it as fine. As a mono- 
 polist it glowed finely ; it was good, too, to lay down 
 
LA FORTUNE 287 
 
 the eight notes of a thousand francs each, to drop the 
 round green leather case into a careless pocket, to 
 walk away with, in that pocket, a hand that nervously 
 clasped the treasure. Henri could hardly hold him- 
 self in ; he wanted to take it out and look at it, but 
 that would have been risky. At last he could bear it 
 no more, jumped into a taxi-cab and, in this shelter, 
 gloated his fill. 
 
 He gloated for two days, for there was no oppor- 
 tunity at home of telling his mother what he had 
 done. He wanted to, for this threw down the glove, 
 and yet he dared not, for he knew his mother would 
 pick it Up. He had insane impulses; he wanted to 
 jump up from the lunch-table and shout, "I love 
 Suzanne, I've given her a necklace, it cost eight 
 thousand francs — eight thousand francs ! " He 
 wondered what would happen if he did; this hypno- 
 tised him so that he embroidered the idea. He 
 seriously turned over in his mind what his parents 
 would say if he suddenly upset the table, danced on 
 the crockery. He wanted to do all these things, not 
 because insanity threatened him, but because he was 
 bursting to do something, dazzle, astonish. And 
 then the opportunity came of itself, as it must to the 
 meek in spirit. On the third day, just as he came in 
 for lunch, he pulled out his handkerchief . . . the 
 case was entangled, fell to the ground and, as Henri 
 had severely tested the patience of the spring, burst 
 open, shedding the guilty gift at Madame Duvernoy's 
 feet. Madame Duvernoy looked at the thing with 
 raised hands, in the stage attitude of astonishment, 
 as frightened as if this were a snake. 
 
 "What's that? " she faltered at length. 
 
 Henri hesitated, dominated by a great effort the 
 
288 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 fluttering of his lieart, and at last said, in a careless 
 but strained voice — 
 
 "That? Oh, nothing; a present for Suzanne." 
 
 There was a moment of silence, during which 
 Henri awkwardly picked up the necklace. He did not 
 look at his mother, and braced himself to receive her 
 reproaches, to listen to her angry sorrow. But she 
 said — 
 
 "How much did it cost? " 
 
 "Ten thousand francs," said Henri, bombastic. He 
 had lied instinctively, for effect, to make the battle 
 hotter. 
 
 "Ah? C'est du propre! You . . . you are going 
 well." 
 
 "Maman, please . . ." 
 
 "No; listen to me. You are mad, you have lost 
 your senses. Ten thousand francs for . . . for . . . 
 for an affair like that. It's . . . Oh, I don't know 
 what to say. ... I never thought you'd do a thing 
 like that, without my consent, behind my back. I 
 should have thought you'd have told me. But no I 
 if it had not been an accident I might never have 
 known." 
 
 "Oh, I should have told you, maman." 
 
 "Indeed! When did you buy it?" 
 
 "Oh, I've just bought it," 
 
 " Where ? Show me the bill." 
 
 " I haven't got it," said Henri desperately, for the 
 bill was dated three days back. 
 
 "Really? This is intolerable. Apart from this, 
 which is an insult to me, you haven't even the sense 
 to take a receipt. You're unfit to have money. But 
 never mind that, that's the least of evils if you're 
 going to be ruined by that girl and her vampire of 
 
LA FORTUNE 289 
 
 a mother. By what right do you give a present like 
 this to a girl who is nothing to you ? " 
 
 "She's my fiancee," said Henri. 
 
 "Really? I did not know it. Not with my 
 consent." 
 
 "Maman, I beg you . . ." 
 
 "Silence ! What I have said I have said. Never, 
 never, never. Do you hear ? " 
 
 Henri did not reply; his mother's anger reverted 
 to the purchase. 
 
 "Ten thousand francs! It's madness; it's a sign. 
 You're throwing your money away; oh, I've seen it, 
 you're ruined, it's all over. You're drunk with buy- 
 ing, hats, boots, ties, taxis, theatres, and the rest I 
 don't know of, debauchery of all sorts." 
 
 "Maman," said Henri angrily, "you've no right 
 to say that." 
 
 " You come and talk to me of rights ! Now look 
 here, Henri, do what you like, but I shall never 
 consent. Spend your money on frippery and folly, 
 spend it on your ... on Suzanne . . . you can 
 give it to her if you like. . . ." 
 
 "Well, that would provide her with the necessary 
 dot," said Henri suddenly. 
 
 Madame Duvernoy looked dazed. Never before 
 had Henri countered swiftly like this. The shock 
 jarred every nerve of her. 
 
 "Do not be idiotic," she faltered; then she regained 
 strength. "No, I won't have you sacrificed. I won't 
 have this fortune wasted." 
 
 "Well, it's my fortune," said Henri obstinately. 
 
 "No; it's the fortune of, your family." 
 
 "I don't care. I'll do what I like." 
 
 "Ah, you will. Do what you like then, be a bad 
 u 
 
290 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 son, a madman. I don't care. I've had enough. 
 No, listen, you're going to promise not to send this 
 to Suzanne, to take it back to the shop." 
 
 "No." 
 
 "I say yes. I won't have you entangled." 
 
 "I won't do it. I'll do what I like. I'll give it to 
 her, and I'll give her more. After all, I am free, 
 independent now ... I won't be tyrannised over. 
 I'll do what I like." His voice rose to a shout. "I'll 
 do anything I like." 
 
 Madame Duvernoy opened her mouth to protest, 
 but felt feeble; there was defiance here. Her son 
 stopped her. 
 
 "It's no use. I've made up my mind. She shall 
 have it to-day. Good-bye, I'm late as it is." 
 
 Madame Duvernoy remained alone in front of the 
 little grate in the big brown stove. Not for one second 
 did the idea of surrender cross her mind; narrow, 
 grasping and without sympathy, she still had the 
 virtue of courage, she could fight. The money was 
 the enemy; how she hated that money, how clearly 
 it showed her that Henri would ultimately revolt. 
 For now he could revolt, marry the girl; whereas he 
 formerly had two hundred and fifty francs a month, 
 which made the wedding impossible, now he had 
 twelve thousand francs a year. Yes, the money 
 would beat her. 
 
 When her husband returned she told him the story 
 of the day. He listened with a worried air as he 
 twisted his grey moustache. 
 
 "Marthe," he said at length, "all this is very dis- 
 turbing. Don't you think we might . . . well, still 
 try and make him see reason . . . but if he seems 
 bent upon this marriage . . . well . . ." 
 
LA FORTUNE 291 
 
 "Jules," Madame Duvernoy spoke in a tragic tone, 
 for her husband was again going over to the enemy, 
 "you say that . . . you? . . . Oh, how can you? 
 Never, I will never consent." 
 
 "But what's to be done? Now he has money he 
 will defy you." 
 
 The old people looked at each other sadly. Their 
 attitude towards their son was peculiarly French : 
 the boy must be held by love, for love was natural 
 in the family; but he must also be held by money. 
 With money in his purse filial love might not 
 suffice. 
 
 "Perhaps," said Madame Duvernoy. "Oh, I 
 almost wish he'd spend his money, that somebody 
 could take it from him." 
 
 "One could, perhaps," said Monsieur Duvernoy at 
 length. 
 
 " What ? " screamed his wife. " How ? " 
 
 " Well, he's been spending a lot lately. We might 
 get a conseil judiciaire." 
 
 " A fonseil judiciaire! " 
 
 " I think if could be arranged. The family — ^Well, 
 our family — will be willing. To tie up the interest of 
 his capital is difficult, but . . . there is a way of 
 arranging . . ." 
 
 "What way?" 
 
 "When the conseil judiciaire is appointed he can 
 invest the money as he likes. ... If he does so in 
 stocks that yield nothing then Henri would have 
 nothing ... he could not marry." 
 
 "Jules ! That is the only thing to do. I won't 
 consent, I won't ! It would kill me. You must 
 arrange this." 
 
 " Well, I'll see ; meanwhile, let him spend freely, 
 u 2 
 
292 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 it'll be easier to get a judgment. But, Marthe, you're 
 sure you'd rather not agree? After all, there's 
 nothing against the girl." 
 
 "No." 
 
 Monsieur Duvernoy shrugged his shoulders. A 
 sickening, life-spoiling affair. Still, he must do what 
 his wife wanted. 
 
CHAPTER THE THIRD 
 
 DIPLOMATIE 
 
 Little by little the conseil judiciaire which was to 
 solve all the troubles of the elder Duvernoys began 
 to be their chief topic of conversation. Though no 
 date had as yet been assigned them the proceedings 
 were decided upon ; there was nothing but hesitation 
 such as overcomes the diver as he stands poised over 
 the water to prevent the old people from taking the 
 necessary steps. Take them, however, they would, for 
 Madame Duvernoy had made up her mind even 
 though she hesitated a little now, while her husband 
 would follow her with misgivings but certainly. No, 
 Madame Duvernoy would not be beaten : she was 
 brave and strong, and never would she surrender so 
 long as there was in her hand a weapon to fight with. 
 
 Thus the conseil judiciaire obsessed them. It was 
 the one way out of their difificulty : if they allowed 
 Henri to retain possession of his fortune he would 
 inevitably revolt and find no obstacles in his way, for 
 a young man with twelve thousand francs a year was 
 a good match for the penniless Bernay girl, given 
 especially that she had set her heart on him. If, on 
 the other hand, his means could be reduced to his 
 beggarly salary, then the Bernays would join the ring 
 
 293 
 
294 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 and Henri, faced on every side by enemies, would 
 return beaten and cowed to his mother's comforting 
 arms. Yes, it was a good plot, so good that Madame 
 Duvernoy had to talk about it, to ask her husband for 
 a recital of details like a child for a favourite story. 
 
 "Jules," she would say, "tell me exactly how it 
 works." 
 
 "I've already told you," her husband would reply, 
 while a sulky look passed over his thin face. 
 
 "Tell me again." The dark eyes would glow, the 
 small fat hands clench. 
 
 "Well, the Code says that when any person of 
 means so behaves as to imperil his fortune, it shall be 
 within the power of his family to come together and 
 to form a conseil de famille. They shall examine 
 the circumstances and, if they think fit, decide to apply 
 to the Courts for a judgment withdrawing from the 
 incriminated person the management of his fortune." 
 
 "Good, that's good," said Madame Duvernoy, her 
 fat chin trembling with excitement. 
 
 " The Court shall investigate, hear the defence, and, 
 if it thinks fit, shall appoint some person conseil of 
 the defendant." 
 
 " Ah ! And then ? And then ? " 
 
 "Then the defendant will no longer be able to dis- 
 pose of his capital. He can purchase nothing, pass 
 no contracts, enter into no agreements without the 
 consent of his conseil; he may dispose of his income, 
 but the investment thereof shall lie within the discretion 
 of the conseil." 
 
 At this stage Madame Duvenroy would laugh if 
 her mood was a savage one, or clap her hands with 
 childish glee, as she hatched the fine plot for irre- 
 vocably binding her son, for making him yet more 
 
DIPLOMATIE 295 
 
 hers by making him poor, enslaved. And, as she 
 thought of him helpless she loved him more, for then 
 he was no longer the sullen man she knew, a man 
 with something like threats in his mouth, but almost 
 the fat sprawling baby she had known who could not 
 feed itself, not walk, not live without her. 
 
 The trifling recurrence of a scene on the Sunday 
 following the affair of the diamond necklace set the 
 wheels in motion. It was a small, an absurd incident. 
 Henri had been on the Quai des Orf^vres and bought 
 the complete works of Voltaire in calf, forty-six 
 volumes." 
 
 "C'est ridicule," said Madame Duvernoy, "ridicule. 
 You waste your money, Henri, you throw it about, 
 you're not fit to have it, you buy things you don't 
 want, you . . ." 
 
 " I do want Voltaire." 
 
 "No you don't, you won't read him. Besides, you 
 can buy the whole of him at twenty-five centimes a 
 volume in the Bibliotheque Nationale." 
 
 "I prefer these. Besides, I will read him." 
 
 "What's the use of it?" 
 
 "Voltaire is a classic." 
 
 "Oh yes, of course," said Madame Duvernoy, 
 slightly abashed, for she respected the classics. She 
 had been hearing about them all her life. Besides, 
 they were compulsory for exams. But her economical 
 soul could not bear the waste, so she returned to the 
 charge. "Still, even if he is a classic, you're not 
 going up for your Baccalaureat." 
 
 "Look here, maman," said Henri angrily, "this is 
 my business ; I shall spend my money as I like." 
 
 "Not with my consent." 
 
 "No? Then I'll spend it without." 
 
296 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 " Henri 1 " Her tone was tragic. 
 
 "I shall," he replied, too angry to be influenced. 
 "I'm tired of being hectored and bullied." 
 
 "I'm not bullying you." 
 
 "Yes you are. I won't be bullied, I won't be told 
 who I'm to know, what I'm to spend, what I'm to do. 
 I've had enough. I'm going out." 
 
 "Where are you going to?" 
 
 "To the Bernays'." The sentence had slipped out 
 and now already it had rushed away like a hound 
 unleashed. Henri had never meant to say it, had 
 never meant to go to the Bernays', and now, with his 
 mother, watched the horrid effects of his unpremedi- 
 tated words. But he lost courage and turned towards 
 the door, passed out, slammed it so as to assure himself 
 that he was still very angry and determined. 
 
 Madame Duvernoy stood motionless where he had 
 left her. She felt numb, but strange enough she did 
 not want to cry. Henri had as good as struck her in 
 the face, but she took it less as an outrage than as a 
 blow received in a fair fight. She wondered why she 
 was so cool, why there was no excitement within her. 
 Then, and very slowly, she knew : quicker and 
 quicker, within her brain, something was throbbing; 
 quicker still, she could feel the active purpose forming 
 and gathering power; it was the machine, Henri had 
 started the machine, and now it was beginning to 
 work. 
 
 II 
 
 The Bernays received Henri with some hesitation. 
 There was awkwardness even, for this was the first 
 time he had formally called at their flat. Madame 
 
DIPLOMATIE 297 
 
 Bernay knew that he often met her daughter at 
 Madame Javal's flat, but this was very different, more 
 definite. She was delighted to see him come out into 
 the open, but she trembled as she realised that the 
 battle must now be at its height. His visit was an act 
 of defiance, an act which might show that he would 
 stick at nothing. And, though he was a desirable 
 suitor, she trembled as she thought of the clash of 
 arms, and took refuge in the easy commonplaces with 
 which is nowadays cloaked the equivalent of Greek 
 tragedy. 
 
 "Charmed, charmed," she murmured; "how nice of 
 you to come and see us, Monsieur Duvernoy. And 
 Madame votre mere — is she well ? " 
 
 "Yes, Madame, thanks, yes, very well," Henri 
 muttered. He was wonderfully stirred by the inti- 
 macy of all this ; they sat in the absurd petit salon on 
 the tiny little odd chairs among the regiment of un- 
 steady tables piled with trumpery. There was not 
 in the room (as Madame Duvernoy would have bour- 
 geoisely put it) an article worth a hundred-franc 
 note. Still, it was part of the garden of Eden. In 
 this flat Henri had for the first time held Suzanne in 
 his arms; at its door he had touched with his her 
 trembling lips. The memory of it made him catch 
 his breath, so intense was it, so vivid. 
 
 Embarrassed and doubting the three sat down, 
 watching one another covertly. Madame Bernay's 
 rf> commonplaces had come to an end and her heart beat 
 as she realised that her next word must formally enlist 
 her in one of the armies. Suzanne sat very erect on 
 her little chair, her eyes downcast, her long idle hands 
 loosely clasped in her lap. Henri looked at her with 
 that fearful desirous hunger her presence inspired him 
 
298 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 with ; he thought that never had such beauty been as 
 that which he read in the fine long lines of her 
 shoulders and limbs. She sat, simply clad in a blue 
 serge skirt and a blue chiffon blouse, unrelieved and 
 severe, adorably aloof and grave as if the scene did 
 not concern her, as if she did not realise the immense 
 significance of it. But at last she raised her eyes 
 towards her lover and, as their gaze met and united, 
 they gained strength and purpose. They both felt 
 the hungry impulse to leap to their feet and clasp 
 their arms round each other in defiance of the witness 
 and of the petty trammels of civilisation. But be- 
 tween them stood two cheap chairs and a little table. 
 Henri found himself oddly wondering whether there 
 would be a great smash if he ran to Suzanne, as he 
 wanted to do. He seemed to lose his strength as he 
 pictured the floor littered with bronze photograph 
 frames and Venetian glass, so he spoke instead of 
 doing. 
 
 " I hope you liked the diamond necklace, Madame." 
 
 " Oh, oui, it is beautiful. And how kind o'f you to 
 give Suzanne such a beautiful gift. It was too 
 much." 
 
 "Not too much for the girl I want to marry, 
 Madame." 
 
 Silence fell heavy. The last commonplace had 
 indeed been spoken and things could never again be 
 what they had been, for now the three could never- 
 more pretend not to know. Madame Bernay misread 
 his meaning. 
 
 "You mean . . ." she faltered excitedly . . ."your 
 mother no longer . . . ? " Then caution and dignity 
 asserted themselves. "You must not speak like that, 
 Monsieur Duvernoy," she said with severity, "I do 
 
DIPLOMATIE 299 
 
 not say that I don't know that you and Suzanne wish 
 to . . . that you have come to an understanding, but 
 you must agree that all this is not correct. It is very 
 incorrect. Your father should speak to my husband ; 
 I can assure you that we will not make difficulties . . . 
 that we will be glad to see both your father and your 
 mother." 
 
 "Oh," said Henri in a low voice, "I don't mean 
 that. Maman has not changed. She does not agree." 
 
 "Well," said Madame Bernay rather acidly, "then 
 this is still more incorrect. I am amazed. Monsieur, 
 amazed." 
 
 "Maman," said Suzanne miserably, " please, please 
 don't speak like that. Don't make it more difficult. 
 I can't bear it. I'm so unhappy, I can't go on like 
 this for ever. . . ." She took her handkerchief from 
 a little bag. "Oh, this waiting, it's awful, it's going 
 on for ever, it's killing me. ..." A sob escaped her. 
 "... killing me. . . ." 
 
 "Suzanne," cried Henri. He heard himself^ shout, 
 felt himself leap forward. The expected happened, he 
 knocked down the table of knick-knacks, the bronze 
 frames, the Venetian glass. But he was kneeling by 
 Suzanne's side, was holding in his arms her throbbing 
 frame, while she wept on his shoulder in great choking 
 sobs. "Suzanne, ma petite Suzanne," he murmured 
 at intervals as he clasped her to him. Still she wept 
 as she desperately clung to him. She wept and, as 
 he stroked the soft dark hair with an unsteady hand, 
 he too felt tears in his eyes. They clung to each 
 other, these two weak and fearful children, thus in- 
 fusing into their relation the reality of sorrow, the only 
 reality known to the weak ; they were conscious in this 
 close contact that physical propinquity alone would 
 
300 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 enable them to resist the massive forces of habit and 
 heredity. They clung, they could do nothing but 
 cling. 
 
 " Voyons, Suzanne," said Madame Bernay at last as 
 she surveyed the group with horrified bewilderment, 
 "stop crying, please stop. Monsieur Duvernoy, leave 
 go of Suzanne at once." 
 
 The lovers parted and Henri stood miserably by 
 while Suzanne wiped her eyes. 
 
 "This cannot go on," said Madame Bernay angrily. 
 Her worn face had gained colour; even her grey hair 
 seemed agitated. "There must be some end to this. 
 If you really want to marry Suzanne . . . well, I will 
 break my own rules and consent at once." 
 
 "Madame!" said Henri gratefully. 
 
 "Yes, but I will not wait." 
 
 "But what am I to do? My mother still refuses." 
 
 "You must force her. You . . . you can . . . 
 well, you are twenty-eight and can do as you choose. 
 I hear you have a small private fortune, perhaps not 
 as much as I should have liked. Still," and her tone 
 became condescending, "I will overlook that as you 
 really seem attached to Suzanne. But you must act at 
 once." 
 
 "You mean," said Henri slowly, "that I must defy 
 my mother?" 
 
 "I ... of course it is not pleasant." 
 
 "But mustn't I respect my mother's wishes?" 
 
 Madame Bernay was nonplussed. The position was 
 very unpleasant, for she was a mother herself and 
 French mothers have esprit de corps. "Well ... I 
 do not say it is pleasant. Naturally, a mother must 
 be listened to . . . she has rights to respect, affection. 
 But there are cases when . . . well, there are excep- 
 
DIPLOMATIE 301 
 
 tions to all rules. . . . You have given her every 
 opportunity." 
 
 "Yes, I have. And still she won't consent." 
 
 " But then, Monsieur Duvernoy, what are you going 
 to do? Are you going to wait for your mother to 
 die?" 
 
 Henri was shocked. Madame Bernay was suggest- 
 ing to him that his mother's death might end his 
 troubles. The horror of the suggestion lay in its 
 truth. 
 
 "Oh no," he said very firmly, "I have every hope 
 . . . you see she knows I am here. It will influence 
 her. Oh, I am sure it will." 
 
 The argument wound about them involving them 
 horribly. Madame Bernay struggled for the rights of 
 parents and for the rights of revolting children until 
 she no longer knew on whose side she was, while 
 Henri made giant but vain efforts to escape from his 
 chains, to promise to face his mother and break her. 
 Again and again the same sentences recurred : "You 
 must do something," and "Yes, but my mother's 
 wishes ? " While Suzanne sat, her long hands clasped 
 in her lap', these two fought for her in the desperate 
 dark. They fought without knowing their enemy, 
 less against each other than against the state of society 
 which held them. They struggled like swimmers 
 among the snags against the custom of centuries, the 
 sale of young women to the highest bidder, property, 
 the family, the rights of parents, tradition, traditional 
 respect, traditional affection. They could see like a 
 faint light in the darkness something that glimmered, 
 a freedom that knew respect and yet knew strength, 
 but they could not make for it, the snags were too 
 heavy on their faint limbs. 
 
302 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 When again Henri stood in the street he felt ex- 
 hausted, as if he had fought an antagonist stronger 
 than he. He had fought the French tradition, pro- 
 mised to try and defy it, and now that he was going 
 out alone to meet it, he was again afraid. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The machine which had begun to work in Madame 
 Duvernoy's capable brain did not stop. It was the 
 kind of machine which did not stop until its work was 
 done, for nothing was neglected by its owner to keep 
 it going; she fed it with maternal love and maternal 
 jealousy, with lust for money, for position, above all 
 with the passionate yearning for domination which 
 lives in the hearts of mothers when they have but one 
 son. As she sat alone through that terrible disrupting 
 afternoon, behind the door Henri had slammed as if 
 he meant to prison her behind it while he lived out 
 his life beyond, she recapitulated the events of the past 
 three and a half years. She remembered him as the 
 steady young man in regular and respectable employ- 
 ment while he learned the practical details of a profes- 
 sion in which he should ultimately shine ; she saw him 
 as a model son then, a young man of good appear- 
 ance, with the manners of a gentleman, rich in the 
 virtues of economy, sobriety and diligence; she re- 
 membered harshly rather than fondly his early returns 
 to her from the office, his walks with her in the Avenue 
 du Bois under the approving eyes of respected legal 
 friends and remunerative Semitic acquaintances. In 
 those days he dined at home, talked to her of books. 
 
DIPLOMATIE 303 
 
 politics, friends, the weather, as if she were a sister 
 rather than a mother. Then came the black days. 
 
 As she thought of the black days all pretence of 
 tenderness vanished. The good young man became 
 the poor weak thing in the hands of unscrupulous 
 people; he was again the silly gaping fool taken in 
 by the meretricious glow of Suzanne's dark eyes at 
 that fatal dinner ... he was the young man at the 
 dance with the minx (she used a word harder than 
 "minx") in his arms . . . the young man who called 
 down shame and social complications upon her head 
 by daring to call on those people. Her mind took a 
 . sudden turn, for now he was calling there again, and 
 no longer furtively, no longer kissing Suzanne behind 
 a door as the footman from the first floor might kiss 
 the cook from the fourth. No, he had gone there 
 openly and defiantly with his fortune as well as his 
 name in his hands, to be tricked by those harpies, 
 sucked dry; no doubt they had formally plighted 
 their troth, those two, resolved to make a mockery 
 of her, to break her heart if that was to break her 
 will. 
 
 Madame Duvernoy paced round and round the 
 dining-room, savagely pushing away the Henri H 
 chairs that barred her way. Break her will ! They 
 should see; they might break her heart, but not her 
 will ; if she died she would die fighting. That Henri 
 was a noodle mattered little : he was her son, there- 
 fore her property, and she must preserve him as she 
 would shore up the tottering wall of her house or 
 send her vicious horse to be tamed by starvation and 
 stripes. And as she walked she lashed herself first 
 into fury, then into a terrible frozen calm that was all 
 intention. Indeed, when Henri at last returned with 
 
304 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 an expression of muddled fear and defiance on his 
 face, she was well past the stage where she could have 
 reviled him. She was no longer a mother, she was 
 a purpose. 
 
 So nothing happened. Henri stood before her 
 waiting to be attacked, and was not molested; he 
 watched her black eyes for a glitter, tried to find a 
 tremor in her plump hands or a tightening in her 
 little mouth. He looked in vain, for he had before 
 him no longer his mother, but the principle of domina- 
 tion. He was faced by the reincarnation of ten 
 generations of matrimonial hucksters, of conquerors. 
 The reincarnation was past anger, hatred, but it was 
 past pity; secure in its sense of right and because 
 it loved him, it had indicted him, heard his case 
 and taken up the brief for the prosecution; then 
 it had judged him by default and, after regis- 
 tering the judgment impersonally, it was about im- 
 personally to take the necessary steps to execute the 
 sentence. 
 
 Madame Duvernoy did not dally. She did not so 
 much feel the need for urgency that she might have 
 felt if she had in hot blood decided to go out and 
 fight, as consider soberly that as she intended to act 
 she must naturally act at once. There was no ques- 
 tion of gaining or losing time ; there was merely some- 
 thing to be done, something commonplace like paying 
 the taxes or catching a train. Therefore, in the 
 normal course she would do it. She gave her husband 
 his instructions on the night of the scandalous affair. 
 It would not be right to say that she laid proposals 
 before him : she merely told him that she intended to 
 take the steps he himself had suggested, to call the 
 conseil de famille together, gain its agreement, and 
 
DIPLOMATIE 305 
 
 then apply to the Courts for their assent. She would 
 attend to the family ; he, on the other hand, must see 
 that everything was legally done. 
 
 "You're quite sure, Marthe," said Monsieur 
 Duvernoy, "that you want to do this?" 
 
 "Quite," said Madame Duvernoy, as she slowly 
 removed her hairpins. 
 
 " Hum ! It'll be very unpleasant, very public." 
 
 Madame Duvernoy cast a cold glance towards her 
 husband and reflected that he did not look his best 
 in bed. His grey moustache hung into his mouth, 
 and besides he was thin, hardly showed under the 
 bedclothes. 
 
 "That is not our fault," she replied. "Besides, it 
 will not affect us. Everybody will agree that we are 
 only being prudent : as for Henri, anything is better 
 than that." 
 
 "Perhaps; perhaps you are right. But what will 
 Henri do? He may never speak to us again; he 
 may revolt, sue for cancellation ; he may bring our 
 name into the Courts again." 
 
 "It's war," said Madame Duvernoy; "if he can beat 
 us, good; if he cannot, good again. But I'm going 
 to win." 
 
 If Madame Duvernoy had known it, what a friend 
 she would have found in Letitia Javal ! 
 
 "Well," said Monsieur Duvernoy, after a long 
 silence, "I suppose you're right, Marthe. I suppose 
 you're right. Of course you'll see to everything with 
 the family. We haven't got much; there's your 
 brother, of course, and Mademoiselle Ravier." 
 
 "And the Lacour girls." 
 
 "Marthe! How can you be so ridiculous. Why, 
 those poor creatures won't dare to say a word." 
 
 X 
 
3o6 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 "Quite so, Jules, they will say what I choose; that 
 is enough." 
 
 Monsieur Duvernoy said no more. He was uncom- 
 fortably conscious of a conspiracy in which he played 
 an ugly part. He was to lend himself to the quasi 
 emasculation of his own son, to sign a paper practi- 
 cally drafted by his wife, together with Lacour, a dis- 
 appointed rival legatee, with Mademoiselle Ravier, 
 dependent and therefore venal, with the Lacour girls, 
 those pale shadows of women. He was to stifle the 
 memory of romance, to fake wrongs and scheme with 
 legal friends to influence the judge. It was low. 
 But then he thought of this money in Henri's hands, 
 this money which should not have come straight to 
 him, but passed first through those of his mother. 
 Yes, old Mademoiselle Romain should have left it to 
 Marthe, for her to hold while she had life and 
 strength. If she had done that he would have had 
 the handling of it; he would have been able to save 
 it, increase it. The bitterness of it invaded him. He 
 did not want to spend those three hundred thousand 
 francs ; he did not want even to spend the income : 
 he wanted to save it, to swell the bundle of securities 
 in his d^pot. It was intolerable to think that Henri 
 might waste it. Besides, as he watched his wife he 
 realised dimly that here was no emotional crisis that 
 words might remedy : she was not hurrying as she 
 unbuttoned her boots and brushed her hair. No, she 
 had made up her mind. So Jules Duvernoy sighed 
 as he reviewed the beastliness of the affair, ground 
 his teeth a little when he thought of the lost money, 
 and agreed. 
 
 Madame Duvernoy wasted no time. The next post 
 carried to Algiers a lengthy letter to her younger 
 
DIPLOMATIE 307 
 
 brother in which she asked him to fix a day, the 
 earliest day he could, to come to Paris to settle this 
 grave business. She recited the circumstances in 
 detail, colouring them somewhat where required. She 
 described Bernay as a rogue greater even than he was 
 reputed to be, his wife as an intriguer, Suzanne as a 
 young person who practised ie flirt. She did not 
 shrink from anything that might help. Suzanne's 
 flirts she calmly represented as being on the un- 
 definable border line which separates respectability 
 from laxity; she traded upon Lacour's sense of im- 
 portance by pointing out repeatedly that he was the 
 head of the house of Lacour, and that this duty of 
 his was also a privilege. The last sentence of her 
 letter was masterly : "... And of course I have 
 always felt uncomfortable about Henri's getting 
 everything. It is quite true that Mademoiselle 
 Romain was only our aunt by marriage; still, she 
 was your aunt as well as mine, and I think it would 
 have been fairer if Jacques and Julie had been left 
 something too. Still, you know how things . are : 
 Henri has everything and Jacques and Julie nothing. 
 Please answer soon." 
 
 Monsieur Lacour made no difificulties. Indeed, he 
 entered into the conspiracy with the zest of a man to 
 whom revenge is offered. It was intolerable, of course, 
 that that fat gawky boy should have so completely 
 cut out his son' and daughter. Besides, as Marthe 
 very sensibly said, he was the head of their house. 
 He telegraphed with fine recklessness : it relieved him 
 to telegraph instead of writing, as it would have 
 relieved him to shout rather than to speak in ordinary 
 tones. And the telegram bore secretly stamped on 
 every word that he was ready for anything. 
 X 2 
 
3o8 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 The capture of Mademoiselle Ravier and of the 
 Lacour girls was also a simple feat, indeed a simpler, 
 for Lacour might have rebelled against his sister's 
 desire; he might have been chivalrous, or felt the 
 stirrings of some esprit de corps, or merely thwarted 
 her because he was angry and disappointed and 
 wanted to annoy somebody. There was nothing of 
 this kind to be expected from Mademoiselle Ravier : 
 she was the pensioner of the Duvernoys and lived in 
 fear of their displeasure; they represented the bare 
 comforts of her declining years, and must therefore 
 be placated at all costs. Besides, and this was quite 
 as important. Mademoiselle Ravier respected her 
 benefactors because they had money. Being rich, 
 they could do no wrong. As for the Lacour girls, 
 Madame Duvernoy wasted no thought on them, but 
 merely told Mademoiselle Ravier to bring them with 
 her when she called. In her spirit of thoroughness, 
 Madame Duvernoy did not neglect any possible 
 advantage. She received her poor relations in the 
 drawing-room, dressed in her new blue foulard and 
 wore most of her jewels. She even committed the 
 solecism so rare among Frenchwomen of pinning on 
 two brooches. But then one of the brooches was a 
 mass of diamonds : it simply fascinated the Lacour 
 spinsters, one of whom had no jewels save an 
 amethyst brooch, while the other owned naught but 
 a necklet of inferior coral beads. 
 
 The four women collected in the drawing-room on 
 the hard black chairs, round the oval table on which 
 was laid an excellent tea. The three spinsters sat 
 very erect, their shoulders parallel to the stiff backs of 
 the chairs;, and watched their hostess with awed eyes 
 as she poured out tea and graciously inquired whether 
 
DIPLOMATIE 309 
 
 they wanted one lump of sugar or two. They all had 
 two; they always had had two in her house, though 
 they were content with one in their poor home in those 
 hard days when sugar still cost fivepence a pound. 
 Still, it pleased them to be asked; it increased the 
 strangeness and imparted adventurousness to the 
 rite. 
 
 "You will be wondering why I asked you to call," 
 said Madame Duvernoy, after she had assured them 
 that she was very well, and that Monsieur Duver- 
 noy was very well, and that ce cher Henri was very 
 well. 
 
 "Oh no, not at all," said Mademoiselle Ravier, 
 whose colourless eyes kindled with curiosity. " It was 
 charming of you, ma chere Marthe." 
 
 "Charming," repeated the daring elder Lacour 
 girl, while her younger sister ventured to smile as 
 does the November sun. 
 
 "There was a reason," said Madame Duvernoy. "I 
 am very worried about Henri." 
 
 Occasionally interrupted by warm expressions of 
 approval from Mademoiselle Ravier, Madame Duver- 
 noy told her tale. She warmed to it as she went on, 
 depicted in crude colours Henri's infatuation, his 
 surliness, his lack of respect for her, exaggerated his 
 obstinate attitude. And all that for that girl ! 
 
 "C'est terrible," said Mademoiselle Ravier. She 
 was deliciousty excited; her colourless eyes glowed, 
 her thin hands clenched so tight that the knuckles 
 showed red. The two Lacour spinsters said nothing, 
 but sat with their eyes fixed on the red felt carpet. 
 They had nothing to say, these two women of uncer- 
 tain age ; their faces had no colour and their eyes no 
 lustre ; their lips were pale and their hair was tightly 
 
3IO THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 drawn, so that their insignificant features appeared 
 almost significant in their ugliness. No man would 
 ever press their bony idle hands, nor cast an en- 
 circling arm round their high shoulders, but still there 
 they were, women, and as women wonderfully stirred. 
 In another twenty years they would be like Made- 
 moiselle Ravier, women no longer except in evil- 
 wishing; and they thrilled at the thought of this 
 handsome, pink-faced, red-moustached Henri who 
 embarrassed them because he was a man. They 
 wanted to say something for him and his love, but 
 what could they say ? Nobody would listen. So they 
 looked at their own bony hands, at the red carpet, 
 and said nothing. 
 
 "But," said Madame Duvernoy portentously, "that 
 is not the worst." She stopped, to emphasise the 
 effect, smoothed the blue foulard, and on her ample 
 bust threw out the brooches. "He is spending his 
 legacy." 
 
 "Oh!" cried Mademoiselle Ravier. She stopped, 
 genuinely horror-struck. For some seconds there was 
 silence; the Lacour spinsters sat with downcast eyes. 
 
 " He is," said Madame Duvernoy. She related the 
 terrible events of the past weeks, the purchases of 
 clothes, the taxis, the theatres, hinted at gambling 
 and . . . drink. 
 
 "Drink," groaned Mademoiselle Ravier. She was 
 French : she could forgive the usual forms of de- 
 bauchery, brutality, gambling, forgery, murder, but 
 not drink. 
 
 And then Madame Duvernoy sprang upon her 
 hearers the story of the diamond necklace, and 
 demanded their presence at the conseil de famille to 
 curb the madman. 
 
DIPLOMATIE 311 
 
 "Oui, out, ma chere Marthe," cried Mademoiselle 
 Ravier, "you are right. It is the only thing to do. 
 You must save him from himself. Who would have 
 thought it ! Such a charmant jeune homme ! Ah, 
 what are we coming to ? " 
 
 "To what indeed ! " murmured Madame Duvernoy. 
 
 "Of course," said Mademoiselle Ravier, "a young 
 man must amuse himself, but one must draw the line 
 somewhere. It is unpleasant to do this, but you must 
 face the inevitable. You see, all things have an end. 
 Oh, it is a dreadful thing: money does not bring 
 happiness, does it, ma chere Marthe ? " 
 
 "No, it does not," sighed Madame Duvernoy. 
 "Well, we are agreed, I will tell you the day. And, 
 of course, not a word. I do not want Henri to know, 
 because . . ." 
 
 "Of course it would . . ." 
 
 "Yes, it would . . ." 
 
 The two women wondered what "it would," and 
 then deciding that everybody must see what "it 
 would," brushed the phrase aside. 
 
 Then a terrible little thing happened. The elder 
 Lacour girl suddenly raised her pale eyes, opened 
 her thin mouth and, clenching very hard those bony 
 hands, faltered — 
 
 " But ma cousine . . ." 
 
 She stopped, already full of fear, unable to utter 
 the passionate prayer for pity which was shaking her 
 poor thin body. The pale eyes roved helplessly to 
 the R^camier couch, the loaded chiffonier. Nothing 
 came, the spring was dry, but she was to be punished 
 all the same. 
 
 "What? What do you say?" shouted Madame 
 Duvernoy. 
 
312 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 "What? What do you say?" hissed the sedulous 
 Mademoiselle Ravier. 
 
 The elder Lacour girl said nothing, merely shrank 
 away as if she feared a blow. She had tried, tried, 
 she had so valiantly dragged herself into battle, and 
 now she could not fight. Tears flooded her unsteady 
 eyes. 
 
 "Understood," said Madame Duvernoy, "you will 
 do what I tell you." 
 
 "Yes," said Mademoiselle Ravier, "you shall." 
 And then jocularly: "One might think it was you 
 he was after." 
 
 Oh, the misery of all this ; the younger Lacour girl 
 laughed as the lash flicked out across her sister's 
 heart : she thought it policy to do so. 
 
CHAPTER THE FOURTH 
 encha1n£ 
 
 I 
 
 The conseil gathered round the dining-room table, 
 covered for the occasion by a faded green cloth. A 
 histrionic instinct had moved Madame Duvernoy to 
 substitute it for the ordinary flowered tablecloth, for 
 in France a green tablecloth means business. A 
 green cloth lies on the table when the maire marries 
 you, when the examiner examines you, when you 
 appear before the court-martial or the assessors of 
 taxes : if the French have anything to do with it there 
 will be a green tablecloth about on the Day of Judg- 
 ment. Madame Duvernoy had neglected nothing to 
 make the occasion solemn. She had collected four 
 inkpots and pens and paper for everybody, though 
 it was not clear that anybody would want to make 
 notes except her brother, who was to act as secretary ; 
 his place was magnificently marked by a brand-new 
 writing-pad bought at the Louvre for one franc 
 ninety-five, a decanter of water on the right, a tumbler 
 on the left. She would gladly have piled by the side 
 of the writing-pad the Talmud and the Kordn, as 
 well as the Manuel de Procedure Civile, which was 
 to guide the debate, for all laws were useful to one 
 who wanted to repress anarchy, but she had to be 
 content with the Manuel, for she possessed no other 
 
 313 
 
314 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 legal treatises. Still, it all looked very well and 
 significant; the room had gained in severity by the 
 regular arrangement round the table of the colonnaded 
 chairs. 
 
 Monsieur Duvernoy sat with his back to the side- 
 board, with the younger Lacour girl on his right 
 and Mademoiselle Ravier on his left. Madame 
 Duvernoy faced him so as to have her brother on 
 her left and the elder Lacour girl, that potential 
 danger, under the cross-fire of her eyes and those of 
 Mademoiselle Ravier. The men wore frock-coats and 
 maintained an air of preoccupation ; Madame Duver- 
 noy was finely gowned in grey silk and again wore 
 many diamonds, while Mademoiselle Ravier, all 
 excited trembles and short-sighted peerings, had for 
 the occasion bought in some d^p6t of dead fashions 
 a bonnet which nobly kept up the traditions of 1875. 
 The Lacour girls, neutral in colour and neutrally 
 clothed, seemed to have drawn their hair tighter than 
 usual ; their bony hands lay listless on the green 
 tablecloth as if their owners had no interest in the 
 proceedings, but the reddened eyelids of the elder 
 girl showed that she had wept that day. Still, she 
 was present and no doubt would do her duty, do as 
 she was told. 
 
 The little clock struck three. Monsieur Duvernoy 
 threw a hurried glance at the languishing shepherdess 
 and her marquis, cleared his throat, hurriedly brushed 
 up his grey moustache. 
 
 "Ahem ! It is three o'clock." 
 
 "It is three o'clock," said Lacour, "it is time to 
 begin." The gay blue eyes rolled pleasantly in the 
 Algerian's brown face, but there was no smile on the 
 thin lips. 
 
ENCHAlNfi 315 
 
 "Yes," said Monsieur Duvernoy. "Ahem! Well 
 ... I ... we have called you together in conseil 
 de famille, to consider ... a situation of great 
 gravity. My son Henri, whom you all know, gave us 
 for many years every satisfaction, but for the last 
 three years he has been under the sway of a . . . 
 of an . . ." 
 
 "Of an attachment," suggested Madame Duvernoy. 
 
 "Yes, of an attachment which . . . thanks to 
 which . . . well, of an attachment which we think 
 disastrous." 
 
 "Oh yes, a terrible attach'ment," said Mademoiselle 
 Ravier in an animated tone, "youth is so imprudent." 
 
 "As you say, ma tante," said Monsieur Duvernoy, 
 "youth is imprudent, but we who have experience 
 must save it from itself." 
 
 " Tres bien," murmured Lacour, as he made a note. 
 
 Monsieur Duvernoy warmed to his subject. His 
 little thin hands fluttered, hi| eyes flashed and his 
 moustache seemed to bristle as he recited the intoler- 
 able treatment to which he had been subjected for 
 three and a half years ; he represented Henri as surly, 
 insolent, systematically disobedient. 
 
 "No discipline," said Mademoiselle Ravier, very 
 resolute. 
 
 "Yes, he cares for nobody," said the Algerian, 
 with fine confidence, given that he had not seen Henri 
 for three years. 
 
 Madame Duvernoy took up the thread. She, too, 
 had a soul full of grievances ; her son had flouted her 
 authority, disregarded her wishes, tried to break her 
 heart. 
 
 "Yes," she cried, with sincere pathos, as the pleni- 
 tudes of her bust passionately surged, "he is a bad 
 
3i6 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 son. And, as for that, girl, she is bad, bad. She 
 is an adventuress, she is not respectable . . . she 
 has been brought up a I'anglaise." 
 
 "Ah, ma chere Marthe, how different things were 
 when we were young," said Mademoiselle Ravier, 
 "time flies." 
 
 "Yes," said Monsieur Duvernoy, hurriedly divert- 
 ing his aunt from a favourite course, "it would be 
 better if things did not change. But they do, and 
 the result is that my son has fallen into the hands of 
 rogues and that if we do not help him he will be 
 ruined." 
 
 There was some slight discussion, if discussion it 
 could be called, when all but the elder Lacour girl 
 were of one mind. The spinster sat silent in her faded 
 dark dress on which feebly flaunted the amethyst 
 brooch. Her face was like wax and as inexpressive, 
 for all feeling seemed to have flown to those pathetic 
 knuckly hands which nervously quivered on the green 
 cloth. When the chorus of abuse had somewhat 
 subsided. Monsieur Duvernoy attacked the second 
 and graver count of the indictment. 
 
 "This is not all. Serious though this be there is 
 another question before us. It is the primary reason 
 . . . well, I should hardly say the primary reason, 
 but it has so much to do with the other. . . ." 
 Monsieur Duvernoy was entangling himself. He 
 waved his hands ineffectually as he tried to explain 
 without exposing too brutally the secret basis of the 
 conseil. 
 
 " My husband means," Madame Duvernoy suddenly 
 interposed with terrible sharpness as she fixed her 
 eyes on the dim silver shapes behind the blue curtains 
 of the sideboard, "that it is because Henri has in- 
 
ENCHAIN^ 317 
 
 herited a small fortune that these people agree to the 
 marriage. If we can remove it from his control they 
 will assuredly drive him away and he will be safe. 
 Oh, I know these people : they love nothing but 
 money." 
 
 "Quite true," said Mademoiselle Ravier, "and yet, 
 neither gold nor wealth make us truly happy." She 
 sighed, and then turned a fierce eye on the elder 
 Lacour girl. The spinster shifted under the heavy 
 gaze ; it goaded rather than quelled her ; she felt that 
 something within her was striving to escape. It was 
 that awful stunted hope that is like nothing so much 
 as a dwarf Japanese tree that strives to break its 
 torturing pot. It was love and romance and ideals, 
 all these starved things that will not die but burst 
 forth into flower even at the thought of dew. A gust 
 of passion seized the elder Lacour girl as she thought 
 of this beautiful couple pitted against this gang of 
 money-grubbers, these people with hearts full of gall : 
 Lacour the disappointed legatee, Madame Duvernoy 
 the tyrant, her husband the dry-as-dust. Mademoiselle 
 Ravier her own gaoler. She must speak, she ought 
 to speak, but above all she must. She found her 
 knees quivering, her temples moist. Then she was 
 speaking, first in a mumble and then more clearly 
 but in tones foreign to her usual speech. 
 
 "I . . . I want to say this. . . . Perhaps it is not 
 so bad as you think; this girl, I have not seen her 
 . . . still, Henri, Henri . . ." She seemed to shrink 
 from an unaccustomed word, but blood rose in her 
 pale cheeks and she tore the rest of the sentence from 
 her reluctant throat. "... still, Henri loves her. Oh, 
 don't make an enemy of him . . . don't make him 
 unhappy . . • life isn't so very good ... we 
 
3i8 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 haven't so long to live ... he has tried so hard you 
 say, he has asked you so often, he has fought so hard 
 . . . fought so hard. . . . Let him be happy even if 
 you think he is wrong, let him be happy for a little 
 rather than be unhappy for ever. . . ." 
 
 " Henriette," shouted Mademoiselle Ravier, but the 
 rebel would not be silenced. She spoke louder, faster, 
 gabbled under the calm and discerning eyes of Lacour, 
 the hot weight of Madame Duvernoy's black gaze. 
 
 "... He's young and he won't always be young 
 ... let him be happy ... let him have what he 
 wants . • . never mind money . . . what does money 
 matter? what does character matter? what does any- 
 thing matter when one is in love . . . oh, don't hurt 
 him — don't, don't, don't." 
 
 Then the elder Lacour girl burst into heavy weep- 
 ing, the tears rolled between the knuckly fingers, her 
 throat was full of horrid mufifled chokings 
 
 "Henriette," shouted Mademoiselle Ravier again as 
 she seized the spinster by the arm and shook her. 
 "Silence, do you hear? silence. You are ridiculous 
 . . . you are mal elevee. The idea of behaving like 
 this." 
 
 "Hysterical," said Madame Duvernoy, as she 
 shrugged her heavy shoulders. 
 
 "Pauvre fille," sneered Monsieur Duvernoy, " tou- 
 jour s sentimentale." 
 
 Lacour laughed and, after a pause, a slavish giggle 
 issued from the lips of the younger Lacour girl. 
 
 At length the spinster's sobs became less violent. 
 She dabbed blindly at her eyes with a large coarse 
 handkerchief and ceased to cry, ceased to show signs 
 of agitation beyond the quick heaves of her flat chest. 
 
 "This incident, this ridiculous incident being over," 
 
ENCHAlNfi 319 
 
 said Monsieur Duvernoy, elaborately casual as he 
 brushed up his grey moustache, "I will^now tell you 
 the end. Since he has been in the hands of these 
 people Henri has been led into extravagance, formid- 
 able extravagance. From the first day onwards he 
 has thrown his money about like . . . like . . . 
 Well, he has thrown his money about, bought, I 
 think, eight suits in one month. . . ." 
 
 "Taken taxis every day," said Madame Duvernoy. 
 
 "With the Metropolitain at his door ! " said Made- 
 moiselle Ravier, full of horror. 
 
 "He has wasted his money on finery, ties, canes, 
 on theatres and music-halls and . . . debauchery. . • ." 
 
 "He is being ruined," said Lacour in duly shocked 
 tones. 
 
 "Yes . . . and to crown all . . ." 
 
 "Henriette," hissed Mademoiselle Ravier, "stop 
 ■ that snuffling." 
 
 "To crown all he has bought for that girl a diamond 
 necklace. . . ." 
 
 "A diamond necklace," whispered the younger 
 Lacour girl. Her eyes glowed fiercely as she fingered 
 her coral beads. 
 
 "Yes, a diamond necklace, worth at least twenty 
 thousand francs." 
 
 Madame Duvernoy glared at the sideboard, her 
 brother nervously drummed on the table with his 
 fingers as he thought of those twenty wasted bank- 
 notes; Mademoiselle Ravier exchanged with the 
 younger Lacour girl a bitter glance that was friendly 
 in its mutual spirit. But Henriette Lacour sat stiff 
 and broken : she had forgotten the terrific, unheard- 
 of extravagance, and now it had fallen on her and 
 crushed her. Twenty thousand francs ! It meant no 
 
320 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 more and no less than a million, for she had no 
 money. But it was awful, incredible. 
 
 "Therefore," said Monsieur Duvernoy in the 
 histrionic style of the French Bar, " I ask you to sign 
 the proces-verbal requiring that a conseil judiciaire 
 be appointed by the Courts to take charge of my son's 
 affairs." 
 
 After another silence all burst into speech. There 
 were cries of abominable and terrible. There were 
 clamours from Mademoiselle Ravier; the younger 
 Lacour girl ejaculated the word discipline, for she 
 was in the majority and gained boldness. Henriette 
 Lacour did not move, did not protest. She was 
 beaten. Meanwhile Monsieur Duvernoy handed 
 Lacour the proces-verbal, for the Jedburgh judge had 
 written it out in advance. 
 
 "Friends, friends," cried the Algerian gaily, "a 
 little silence." His blue eyes glowed in his hand- 
 some brown face; his voice rang brazen and 
 triumphant as he read the document. " Voild. There 
 is nothing to do but sign. I will sign last. Now, 
 Jules." 
 
 Monsieur Duvernoy signed illegibly with a great 
 flourish ; then the younger Lacour girl carefully wrote 
 her name in fine Italian writing; Madame Duvernoy 
 seized the pen and signed so angrily that " Marthe " 
 read like "Marie." Mademoiselle Ravier signed, 
 coquetting with her flourish and the dot over the "i." 
 Then she laid the paper before Henriette. The 
 spinster looked at it miserably, keeping her bony 
 hands clasped together. 
 
 "Henriette," said Mademoiselle Ravier, "sign." 
 
 The spinster did not move, but a sound escaped 
 her throat. The silence laden with glances weighed 
 
ENCHAlNfi 321 
 
 heavy on her crushed soul. She nerved herself to 
 refuse, to jump up, to cry out that she would not 
 sign, but she raised her eyes, saw Lacour and Mon- 
 sieur Duvernoy mocking, Madame Duvernoy and her 
 sister so hard and resolute. With a trembling hand 
 she took up the pen. 
 
 "Here," said Mademoiselle Ravier, peering at the 
 paper. She put her hand on Henriette's shoulder, 
 pressing upon it with her lean fingers; an awful 
 psychic force seemed to pass from her into the body 
 of her victim. Henriette Lacour's face worked, but 
 she dipped the pen into the ink. She looked help- 
 lessly at all those hostile faces ; then,^ with a faint but 
 desperate shrug and a heavy sigh, traced her name. 
 
 "Ouf!" said Lacour, as the tension relaxed, and 
 quickly signed. 
 
 There was a sudden sharp sound. Henriette 
 Lacour had fallen face on the table as she fainted. 
 Along the green cloth, at the end of her long gaunt 
 arm, lay the bony hand with the red knuckles. 
 
 II 
 
 "Well," said Madame Duvernoy, "that is over and 
 finished. Oh, I am so glad." 
 
 " Glad, glad, so am I, but it is not finished yet." 
 
 " Not finished ? " cried Madame Duvernoy, as she 
 threw an anxious glance at her husband. "Oh, you 
 mean you must get the approval of the Court? But 
 that will be quite easy." 
 
 "I don't say we shall not get their approval. It 
 will come up in the Premiere Chambre before Presi- 
 dent Mazul ; he will do anything I like because he will 
 
322 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 want me to get his son quartered in Paris in November 
 when he begins his military service. I can arrange it 
 through Colonel Chamino. Still, Henri may make 
 trouble." 
 
 " Do you mean protest ? What can he do ? " 
 
 " He can defend himself ; he can employ a barrister. 
 Of course, we have the best chance with the conseil 
 de famille behind us, but you can't say what a clever 
 barrister might not do." 
 
 Madame Duvernoy did not speak for a moment, 
 but her fine grey-clad bust heaved angrily. At last 
 she burst out — 
 
 "Why didn't you tell me? What's the use of all 
 this if you can't arrange matters? It's ridiculous, 
 you're making me ridiculous. Oh, why must I go 
 through all this ? — my son is callous and my husband 
 is as useful as ... as . . ." 
 
 " Voyons, Marthe," snarled Monsieur Duvernoy, 
 giving a fierce twist to his moustache, " I pray you do 
 not be absurd. What is the use of my telling you 
 half the truth? Henri is entitled to defend himself, 
 que diable! It is only common sense. Of course I 
 will do everything I can, see Mazul, tell him to 
 arrange it with his assessors. I don't think there will 
 be a hitch, but you must look ahead." 
 
 " What is going to happen ? " asked Madame 
 Duvernoy. 
 
 "The case will be called in about three weeks. I 
 can't manage it before; in the ordinary way it would 
 be two months. Then . . ." 
 
 "Two months!" screamed Madame Duvernoy, 
 "but . . ." 
 
 "I tell you I can arrange it with the greffier. It will 
 be three weeks." 
 
ENCHAtNE 323 
 
 "Three weeks! But in three weeks . . . Jules, in 
 three weeks, as soon as Henri hears about this . . . 
 how do you know he won't marry the girl?" 
 
 The two looked at one another with serious fright- 
 ened faces. Madame Duvernoy had the sensation 
 that she was fighting for her son against the im- 
 penetrable stupidity of her husband. 
 
 "We should get a verdict if he did, certain," he 
 mused. 
 
 "But, Jules, you are mad. What's the good of a 
 verdict if he marries her? He'd be ruined . . . 
 ruined. Oh, I can^t, I won't bear it. . . . And I 
 feel it, I feel it, he'll lose his head when he hears . . •" 
 
 "Well," snarled Monsieur Duvernoy, "he's got to 
 hear. He'll be summoned to appear three days 
 before the case comes on. I can't help the law, I 
 didn't make it." 
 
 "Three days?" 
 
 "Yes, three days. Plenty of time to go to a 
 barrister." 
 
 "Not so much time as three weeks." 
 
 "Well, I don't see that that matters much and . . ." 
 
 "Jules! Do you really mean to say he needn't 
 hear till three days before ? Do you really, really ? " 
 
 "He needn't, if nobody tells him." 
 
 "Then," cried Madame Duvernoy, "then he will not 
 know. You will say nothing nor will my brother, 
 nor la tante Ravier. Oh, he will not know." 
 
 "What about Henriette ?^' said Monsieur Duvernoy 
 nervously. 
 
 "Henriette ... ah ... oh, she wouldn't dare." 
 
 "She had some spirit to-day." 
 
 For a minute Madame Duvernoy faced this new 
 danger, but soon she was ready to cope with it. 
 Y 2 
 
324 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 " We must get her out of the way ! " 
 " Murder ? " said Monsieur Duvernoy, with a smile. 
 "You are absurd. Let me give la tante Ravier a 
 thousand francs and send them all three off to Nice 
 for a month. To-night, send them off to-night. 
 Once they are there I assure you your aunt will watch 
 her I She won't even post a letter. Her sister will 
 watch her too, if we give her something, stockings, 
 new boots, anything. And at night they can lock 
 her up." 
 
 "Marthe," said Monsieur Duvernoy, laughing now 
 at his wife's bright eyes, "what a conspirator you 
 would have made ! " 
 
 "Do you agree?" Madame Duvernoy had no time 
 to laugh. 
 "Well a thousand francs is a lot of money." 
 "Would you rather Henri married that girl?" 
 "No, of course not; well, it's not a bad idea. But 
 Henri would still have three days." 
 "He can't marry in three days." 
 "No, but he can see a barrister. And perhaps he 
 will when he reads the summons." 
 " When he . . . But . . . but, Jules, must he see it ? " 
 " What do you mean ? Of course he must. It'll be 
 delivered him here personally by a huissier." 
 
 Madame Duvernoy looked at her husband with an 
 air of dismay. Then, suddenly, her mouth relaxed 
 into a smile. 
 
 "Jules," she said in a hoarse, excited voice, "will 
 the huissier know him ? " 
 
 " Know him ? Of course not." 
 "Ah! Then listen . . . my brother is still here 
 . . . ask him to stay here, and then . . ." 
 "Then?" 
 
ENCHAiNE 325 
 
 " You will send Henri away, find some business for 
 him somewhere. Berquin will let him go. And . . . 
 my brother will receive the summons." 
 
 " Impersonation ? " shouted Monsieur Duvernoy. 
 His legal soul was thrilled with horror. "But . . . 
 but it's gaol if it's found out. And your brother 
 won't do it." 
 
 "It won't be found out. Henri will realise what 
 happened . . . but only after . . . and then he won't 
 speak ... he won't send you to gaol. Oh no, that's 
 safe. And as for my brother . . ." Madame Duver- 
 noy smiled harshly as she thought of the disappointed 
 legatee, "... leave my brother to me." 
 
 "But Henri must have the summons." 
 
 "Yes, but only let him have it an hour before he 
 has to appear. He won't realise . . . he'll be too 
 surprised to say what happened . . • it'll knock him 
 down ... he won't be able to do anything." 
 
 Monsieur Duvernoy looked at her amazedly, then 
 nodded several times. "That," he said at length, "is 
 an idea." 
 
 Ill 
 
 Henri stood stupidly looking at the paper in his 
 hand. He was summoned to appear as respondent at 
 the Premiere Chambre of the Palais de Justice at ten 
 o'clock that day. The conseil de famille required the 
 Court to approve its decision that a conseil judiciaire 
 should be appointed to deal with his affairs. The 
 conseil de famille? What conseil? Why? What 
 had he done? He struggled vainly with these ques- 
 tions for some minutes, and was conscious only of 
 
326 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 an immense bewilderment. Apparently something 
 had been going on behind his back, decisions had 
 been taken; mysterious processes had worked, and 
 alone their results were visible. He had the sense of 
 a conspiracy, but it did not anger him : it left him 
 disarmed rather, too amazed to protest and fight. He 
 felt like a' dog held by the scruff of its neck and help- 
 lessly dangled in the air by its master ; he found him- 
 self stupid as is the animal when it rolls its eyes about 
 but can do no more than wave its paws. 
 
 It was nine o'clock. He had had his chocolate in 
 his bedroom and was preparing to leave for the etude 
 when this thing fell across his path. He read it ten times 
 perhaps, still bewildered, and without even debating 
 as to what he should do. The door opened, and, 
 quickly, with an air of preconceived and military 
 attack his father and mother entered the room. They 
 looked truculent in their outdoor clothes and yet 
 abashed; there was colour in his mother's cheeks and 
 nervousness in his father's hands. 
 
 "Come along, Henri," said Monsieur Duvernoy 
 very jauntily, "it's a quarter-past nine. We've just 
 got time enough. I've ordered a fiacre." 
 
 "Time?" 
 
 "Yes. You've had the summons, I suppose? We 
 must be at the Palais at ten." 
 
 " But . . . but why . . . ? " 
 
 "You should know," said Madame Duvernoy 
 coldly, "you have been extravagant; steadily you are 
 getting worse. You are to have a conseil judiciaire. 
 The conseil de famille has decided." 
 
 The conseil de famille! The thing loomed immense 
 in Henri's misty horizon. He had a vision of his 
 relatives, his mother and father, his uncle Lacour, 
 
ENCHAiNfi 327 
 
 Mademoiselle Ravier, his Lacour cousins, and Julie 
 and Jacques and Mademoiselle Romain whose money 
 had delivered him into his family's hands, and even 
 further back the long dead grandfathers who had 
 given him sweets, a grandmother, and other faded 
 figures. It closed round him, it shrieked at him, and 
 stifled him and pushed him and muzzled him; it 
 cried out that it knew what was right, and that it 
 was holding him, and that he'd better go quietly, 
 for it was the family, the French family, France, 
 the world force. He looked dully at the two repre- 
 sentatives. 
 
 " It's for your good," said Madame Duvernoy with 
 decision. 
 
 "Allans, hurry up," said Monsieur Duvernoy as he 
 stormed the keep. 
 
 Soon the silent three, conquerors and prey, were 
 jolting in the fiacre over the uneven wood blocks of 
 the Champs Elys^es. 
 
 IV 
 
 " Your name is Duvernoy, Henri ? " 
 
 "Oui, Monsieur le President." 
 
 "Age twenty-eight. Old enough, I should say, not 
 to stand before the Court in ai case such as this." 
 President Mazul portentously blew out his puffy 
 cheeks as he delivered the rebuke. Henri, having 
 nothing to say, realised him again as a little fat man 
 with the reddest possible whiskers and a rotundity 
 which his robes imperfectly concealed. 
 
 "Still," President Mazul pursued, "the Court has 
 
328 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 heard the statements of your natural guardians, read 
 the proces-verbal of the conseil de famille signed by 
 every living member of your family." 
 
 "Monsieur le President, I object," cried the 
 barrister whom the Court had appointed on the spot 
 when it found that Henri was undefended, "I under- 
 stand that the signatory Lacour is married. There 
 is no information as to the attitude of his children if 
 any." 
 
 "There are two," said Monsieur Duvernoy, rising, 
 "respectively aged fifteen and twelve." 
 
 "Your objection falls to the ground, Maitre 
 Perrin," said the President smoothly, "as these 
 persons are minors. I repeat, therefore, young man, 
 that the unanimous judgment of your family is 
 against you. The catalogue of your extravagances 
 is not, I must say in justice to you, unequalled in the 
 annals of the Court : we are, I regret to think it, 
 accustomed to deal with the gambling away of 
 fortunes and their dissipation in shameless de- 
 bauchery, neither of which is alleged against you. 
 But it is alleged that you recently inherited a large 
 sum, and that this has been followed by an immediate 
 ebbing away of your moral force. It is stated that 
 you have at once distinguished yourself by sartorial 
 extravagance, that you have expended in two months 
 more money on clothes than you formerly spent alto- 
 gether in two years, notably that you have purchased 
 eight suits of clothes in one month. Have you any- 
 thing to say in reply ? " 
 
 Henri's eyes concentrated for a second on the 
 judge's red whiskers, then roved past the pale horse- 
 faces of his two assessors. He surveyed the big white- 
 washed hall, its oak benches and solemn red curtains, 
 
ENCHAiNE 32,9 
 
 the municipal guards at the door, the queer clean place 
 where the crucifix had hung before the anti-clerical 
 campaign. It did not inspire him; it dazed him to 
 be there in a sense as a prisoner; it crushed him. He 
 saw his father near him sitting rigid with folded arms, 
 his mother, who that day looked as large in a severe 
 black silk dress as if it had been white, for it was 
 tight, and the brown bench threw out her form into 
 relief. Both avoided his eyes, but Lacour, who sat 
 with the public, boldly levelled at him a hot blue 
 gaze. 
 
 "Well?" said President Mazul, "do you acknow- 
 ledge this . . . this piece of ridiculous extravagance ? " 
 
 Henri struggled to remember, but his mind refused 
 to work. He could not recall having bought eight 
 suits; still, he had bought a lot of clothes : no doubt 
 they were right. 
 
 "Oui, Monsieur le President," he said dully. 
 
 "Ah ! " President Mazul stooped intently forward, 
 while his assessors whispered behind his back. "Then 
 I presume that you also acknowledge having wasted 
 large sums in the purchase of a number of useless 
 articles, ties, canes, unnecessary boots, hats ? " 
 
 " Oui, Monsieur le President." Yes, he had bought 
 these things. 
 
 President Mazul lectured him at great length on the 
 iniquity of waste; he upbraided him, charged him 
 with folly, lack of respect for his parents. In the 
 familiar style of French judges he prosecuted, angrily 
 sweeping aside the timid objections of Maltre Perrin, 
 the helpless defender, who had had no brief, and 
 whose questions to Henri had elicited nothing. 
 
 "Erifin," cried President Mazul viciously, "you are 
 charged with having defied the wishes of your parents, 
 
330 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 purchased a costly diamond necklace for a young 
 person whom they will not allow you to marry." There 
 was a buzz of interest in the court. The assessors 
 looked shocked ; the public in the gallery, middle-aged 
 bourgeois, idle young men and women, all wanted to 
 see the rebel. He had not merely thrown a bomb, 
 this ruddy young fellow with the golden moustache, 
 or shot a rival, or done any of the normal things : he 
 had flouted parental authority. The women looked 
 at him with a mixture of admiration and fasci- 
 nated horror, while the men frowned or enviously 
 smiled at the romantic figure to whom Shinto meant 
 nothing. 
 
 " Do you acknowledge this ? " thundered President 
 Mazul with trembling red whiskers. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Do you acknowledge that your parents have 
 forbidden this marriage ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Have they intimated that they might ever 
 consent ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Have you any, valid reason to urge for defying 
 them ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Have you anything to say? You must under- 
 stand that under these circumstances the Court will 
 have no resource other than to call upon your counsel, 
 who is hardly in a position to state your case." 
 
 Henri did not reply. He had nothing to say. His 
 mind would not act; it suggested nothing to him, 
 nothing to relieve him of the sense of guilt these 
 coalescing forces were thrusting upon him. He stood 
 horribly ashamed at the bar, convicted of crimes which 
 
ENCHAlNfi 331 
 
 he himself had been trained to think grave, extrava- 
 gance and contempt for parental authority. He was 
 caught in the great social machinery of the family and 
 the law, those interdependent and allied forces; they 
 loomed before him, gigantic and awful, clad in their 
 traditional rights. He could do nothing. 
 
 "La parole est a Maitre Perrin," said President 
 Mazul as he threw himself back in his arm-chair, 
 blowing out his cheeks and stroking his red whiskers. 
 He listened without interest, whispering to his 
 assessors at times to demonstrate that the matter was 
 already settled. It effectually was, for the unfortunate 
 barrister, having neither brief nor verbal information, 
 could not attack a single point of fact, challenge state- 
 ments, demand the production of bills. All he could 
 do was to throw himself upon the mercy of the Court, 
 to ask for an adjournment. 
 
 "Non, Maitre Perrin," said President Mazul 
 sharply, "the Court knows all there is to know." 
 
 Maitre Perrin struggled on bravely. He begged the 
 Court to consider his client's youth, to recognise that 
 follies such as these were inseparable from the sudden 
 influx of wealth, but that they were transitory, and that 
 the salutary lesson an appearance in court had taught 
 his client would reduce his excesses to vanishing- 
 point. The affair of the diamond necklace he tackled 
 more carefully, for it was terribly complicated by the 
 marriage question. If only there had been no marriage 
 tangle ! If only Henri had bought the necklace for 
 some woman whom he obviously would not marry, 
 all would have been well. But he wanted to marry 
 against his parents' wishes, and this hung like a mill- 
 stone round Maitre Perrin's neck. 
 
 "I recognise the gravity of my client's position," 
 
332 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 he cried, "but again I plead youth and its uncertain- 
 ties. I plead that all of us are apt to go astray and 
 to flout the rule of those who love us . . ." Maitre 
 Perrin looked appealingly at the two inexorable 
 figures at the side, "... but I do beg the Courtto 
 give my client an opportunity to redeem his position, 
 to give him leave to express his contrition and to 
 promise to make amends if only the decision be not 
 adverse." 
 
 "He has had his opportunity," said President 
 Mazul. He was in a hurry to make an end of the 
 case; the young man had made no defence, denied 
 nothing, promised nothing. He was a stupid and 
 sullen young man. Besides, reflected President 
 Mazul, Duvernoy was the only man he knew who 
 could satisfactorily arrange that favour for his son : 
 to keep his son with him while he fulfilled his military 
 obligations was a big thing. He consulted his 
 assessors ; there was a nod from the one, a' grunt from 
 the other. 
 
 Henri left the court with his mother, the one dazed, 
 the other grim, but both silent. Monsieur Duvernoy 
 stayed, uneasily conscious of success. Henri was 
 delivered into his hands; he was appointed conseil 
 judiciaire, could now despotically administer his son's 
 money, reduce his income to nil, hold him, dominate 
 him as a father and a master. 
 
CHAPTER THE FIFTH 
 
 Madame Duvernoy nervously fussed about the big 
 drawing-room. The histrionic sense, never quite 
 absent even in the most poignant of French tragedies, 
 had stood by her side as a gloomy usher, and rolled 
 open for the crisis those doors which admit none but 
 scheduled occurrences : birth, marriage, death, and 
 the necessary impressing of the great. She walked 
 hurriedly over the red felt carpet from white-and-gold 
 wall to white-and-gpld wall, disturbing as she went 
 the happy order of the black-and-gold chairs; she 
 lifted and laid down a cushion; she centred more 
 accurately a Swiss cow-bell upon the chiffonier, and 
 as she did these unnecessary things, thanks to which 
 days of reckoning can sometimes be postponed, she 
 watched the silent, bowed figure of her son in the 
 arm-chair by the empty grate. 
 
 He sat in it loosely, with parted knees, and hands 
 carried low and clasped, with unseeing eyes on the 
 rug at his feet, and a droop in his heavy shoulders. 
 He did not move his bent head, nor did he show that 
 action would presently revivify him. He sat as if 
 waiting for malignant fate to sling yet another stone 
 at him, as if he had submitted to so much that sub- 
 mission was a habit. He sat in quiet expectation that 
 the will of his house would soon reassert itself 
 
 333 
 
334 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 and compel him, as it tliought fit, to be active or 
 quiescent, and an odd detached indifference was upon 
 him. As she saw him sitting thus, abandoned in 
 every line and with mysterious, averted eyes, an 
 intolerable sense of pity and anger filled her, made 
 her want to throw herself at his knees and beg for 
 forgiveness, or to clasp him round the neck and com- 
 fort him, or even to stand before him and shake her 
 fist in his face and tell him he was a bad son, but 
 that now she held him fast. The conflict was so sharp 
 that the impulses neutralised one another, and left her 
 mind void of purpose ; one thing only emerged : she 
 must end this awful, silent companionship, thrust 
 into the heavy atmosphere of mental inaction some 
 purely material but distracting thing. 
 
 "Now, Henri," she said briskly, "you had better 
 get ready; le dejeuner will be ready in ten minutes." 
 
 "I don't want any," said Henri. She was struck by 
 the low pitch of his voice. 
 
 "Oh, don't be absurd. Of course you must have 
 your lunch." It honestly angered her to think he 
 might not be fed, for he was her responsibility, and 
 she had a right to discharge it ; she had done so for 
 twenty-eight years. 
 
 "I don't want any," Henri repeated. He found that 
 all his energies were mustered in resistance to this 
 trifling pressure. Why should he eat if he did not 
 want to ? 
 
 Madame Duvernoy looked at him doubtfully, 
 understanding very well that in his perturbed con- 
 dition he would not want food. Still, she felt that she 
 ought to press him. 
 
 "Voyons, mon cheri," she pleaded, "you mustn't 
 talk like that. Of course I know quite well you have 
 
LA d£bACLE 335 
 
 had trouble, excitement, to-day. Still, all that is 
 over now. You must be philosophic. Life isn't 
 always what we want it to be, so we must take it as 
 it comes. You know flow fond of you your father 
 and I are; we ... we only did everything for the 
 best." 
 
 "Ah ? " Henri looked up suddenly and fixed upon 
 her eyes which seemed bluer and bigger than she had 
 ever seen them. Rather, no, she had seen them like 
 this once before, as a prelude to typhoid fever. They 
 shocked her, frightened her. 
 
 "Yes," she said hurriedly, "of course . . . you 
 know quite well ... of course we wouldn't do any- 
 thing else. ... I can't expect you to see that quite 
 . . . one doesn't at your age. After all, you know, 
 things won't be so very dreadful. Everything will go 
 on as it used to before all these things happened. 
 We don't want to take your money away; we're not 
 going to. It'll only mean that your father will take 
 care of it and pay you the income . . . well, such 
 income . . ." 
 
 "The income? " Though Henri was in a maze, the 
 magic word stirred him . . . nationally. 
 
 "Yes , . . the income. It may not be much at 
 first; not as much as it is now." 
 
 Henri looked at her with a stupidity that encour- 
 aged her, for his vacuous air betokened a weakness 
 by favour of which she could tell him the truth. 
 
 "You see, Henri," she said guardedly, as she 
 rubbed against each other the little plump hands that 
 had grown rather moist, "we feel that, for a time — 
 oh, only for a time — it would be better — better for 
 you, you understand — if you did not receive anything 
 besides what you make. You have been extravagant, 
 
336 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 i-wrc6 if 
 dreadfully extravagant. It would . . ." Snte-I,^ 
 
 not looking at him now, but had fixed her eyes on 
 
 the Corot (which was really a Trouillebert). "It 
 
 would teach you economy. So your father will invest 
 
 it in things — oh, quite good things, you know, like 
 
 Panama bonds and shares, good shares; they will 
 
 make you richer by and by, but for a time there will 
 
 be no income." 
 
 She breathed hard, having had her say, then stole 
 a glance at him, to find the blue eyes staring at her 
 fixedly. His head was quite erect now, and his 
 shoulders were no longer bowed. 
 
 "Ah," he said in a strained voice, "there will be 
 no income?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "You mean I shall only have the three thousand 
 francs I earn ? " 
 
 "Yes ... at least now . . . later on we will 
 see. . . ." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 Madame Duvernoy was nonplussed, but struck back 
 with an old weapon. "To teach you economy." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Oh, don't be absurd! You must be economical. 
 Besides . . ." 
 
 "Besides what?" 
 
 "Well," said Madame Duvernoy grudgingly, "we 
 can't quite trust you, you see. You might . . . you 
 might do anything . . . spend a lot. . . ." 
 
 "What would it matter if I spent my income?" 
 
 "One must save. . . . Still, I don't say ... but 
 it's not only that ... we can't trust you , . . you 
 might . . . Well, we thought that perhaps, now 
 you had a fortune . . . Suzanne Bernay . . ." 
 
LA DEBACLE 337 
 
 ^^•-l^iizanne ? " The name came with a i^udden sharp- 
 ness, and Madame Duvernoy saw with awful clarity 
 that his suspicions were aroused. She must go on. 
 And bravely she rushed into the fray. She had no 
 more coward eyes now for the red felt carpet, the 
 black-and-gold chairs, the chiffonier; she looked 
 boldly into his face. 
 
 "Yes, Suzanne. We were afraid that you might 
 forget what you owed us, that you might marry her 
 against our wishes. I know you have a sense of duty, 
 but one forgets that sometimes when one is rich. You 
 see, with that big income you were a fine match ; they 
 would have held on to you ; they love money, those 
 people . . , it's your money they were after . . . but 
 now, of course . . ." 
 
 "Now ! " Henri shouted. He leapt to his feet, and 
 his mother had a moment of terror as her son loomed 
 enormous in front of her, fierce-eyed and red-faced. 
 But she could have spared herself terror : he hardly 
 saw her, for his mind was fully occupied with the 
 struggle to realise the position. "Now ! " he said in 
 a lower voice. Then again: "Ah ... I begin to 
 see . . . you mean that she would have married me 
 when I had a good income . . . but not now . . . 
 now. . . . Ah, it's awful! I can't understand, 
 believe. . . . Maman," he cried almost pitifully, "am 
 I wrong? Do you mean that you've done this to 
 part us ? " 
 
 Madame Duvernoy stood before him silent and 
 self -accused. There struggled through her com- 
 placency a faint sense of shame. 
 
 "Answer me," he said roughly; "is this a plot? 
 Have you all schemed to deprive me of my income 
 because you thought I'd marry her in the end? 
 
338 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 Because you thought you could hold me by force, if 
 you couldn't hold me by respect? Answer me ! " he 
 shouted. 
 
 Madame Duvernoy looked at the angry face, and 
 could say nothing. Her mind was absurdly busy with 
 tiny things : his red moustache, the buttons on his 
 rotund waistcoat. At last she nodded in assent. 
 There was a long silence, during which she felt his 
 gaze heavy upon her. At last he spoke, slow and 
 harsh. 
 
 "You . . . you, my mother . . . you did not trust 
 me to obey, so you've tied me up. You've taken my 
 money . . . yes, you have," he cried fiercely, as she 
 lifted a hand in protest. "You've taken my income 
 from me because you thought that I wouldn't marry 
 her on three thousand francs a year, and that I would 
 on twelve. You thought she was after my money 
 . . . she who's loved me for three years . . . loved 
 me as you've never loved me. ..." 
 " Henri ! " Oh, she was paying ! 
 "Yes . . . as you've never loved me. . . . What's 
 all this? I see what it is: you've opened my eyes. 
 . . . What's all this affection of yours ? It's tyranny, 
 it's cruelty, it's brutality. You have . . . dared to 
 try and break me by taking my money . . . dared 
 to insult Suzanne by suggesting that that's what she 
 wants. . . . How dare you ? How dare you ? " 
 "You have no right to use the word ' dare ' to me." 
 "You have no right to steal my money." 
 "How dare you speak to me like that?" 
 "Ah," Henri laughed savagely, "you, too, say 
 ' dare ' to me ! It's in the family." 
 
 Madame Duvernoy felt tears come into her eyes at 
 the gibe, but she drove them back and dragged herself 
 
LA DEBACLE 339 
 
 back to the battle. No surrender ; it was a fight for 
 power and a fight for love. 
 
 " It was for your good. . . ." 
 
 "For my good! Oh, mon Dieu, what do you 
 foow ? How do you know what's good for me ? 
 How dare you judge for me ? Ah, I know why : it's 
 because you're used to being master, and master you 
 want to be still. You've dictated as to what I should 
 wear and what I should eat, and as to when I should 
 play and work; and now you want to choose a wife 
 for me, and keep me from the one I want. It's 
 tyranny, that's all; it isn't love of me, it's love of 
 power; it's selfishness, it's hardness, brutal hardness, 
 stupidity." 
 
 "Henri!" 
 
 "Yes," he repeated, as understanding flooded his 
 mind, "stupidity." 
 
 "How can you? You don't know the world. There 
 are obligations I've got to think of, money. ... ." 
 
 "Money!" Henri brought his fist down to the 
 small table. "Money again — your religion. Money's 
 the thing that cursed us : money, I suppose, that 
 made you marry my father; money that's made you 
 stint and scrape; money that's prevented you from 
 travelling, and forbidden hospitality, and forbidden 
 theatres, books, happiness, life. It's money you 
 dream of, and of people with money, and of getting 
 more money, and marrying money, and money breed- 
 ing money, money, money, more money. . . ." 
 
 "One must think of money," said Madame Duver- 
 noy hotly, as she clenched the little hands, "in 
 France. . . ." 
 
 " In France ! " Henri interrupted, suddenly so clear- 
 headed that he could see, see at last. "Speak of it, 
 z 2 
 
340 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 your low country — a country of money-grubbers and 
 peasants wallowing in the mud of their fields; a 
 country where women are for sale and honour for 
 hire, where art runs in the gold-strewn gutter, where 
 people won't marry because marriage is dear, where 
 they won't have children because children are dear, 
 where justice is bought, and position is bought, and 
 government is bought, and God Himself is bought 
 . . . when there is a buyer. . . ." 
 
 " Henri ! . . , I beg you . . . Henri I . . ." 
 
 "No, no; leave me alone. I see you as you are, 
 you and the rest. All of you filthy with money, all 
 of you ready to sacrifice for money father, son and 
 husband. So that's what you call the family : a 
 group of people leagued against the world to make 
 money, and torturing one another to keep it . . . and 
 that's what you call affection : a crafty scheme to 
 maintain fortunes . . . and that's what you call 
 duty : the obligation to obey the call of money when 
 you express it . . . filial respect, all that, the claim 
 of money in another form. . . ." 
 
 "Henri!" 
 
 "I've done with it: done with the family, done 
 with affection; I've done with respect and obedience; 
 I'm going to be happy in my own way ; I'm going to 
 be free. Yes, though maybe that I shall again be 
 beaten by money in my new family . . . yes, in my 
 new family." 
 
 "She won't marry you now." 
 
 "So you think; but perhaps she wants less money 
 than you do. Ah, that strikes home ? Yes, some of 
 us don't want so much money; some of us believe in 
 freedom and in love. You think there's no such 
 thing, no hearts, no loves, only money . . . but 
 
LA DEBACLE 341 
 
 there's contempt for money, too. You've taught me 
 that, you. . . . It's by loving money that you've made 
 me understand money. . . . It's by making me a 
 slave that you've made me understand liberty. . . . I'm 
 free, free ! You thought you had me in your hands, 
 but you were wrong. I'm going, going, understand 
 that, going for ever . . . it's liberty I want, and 
 liberty I'll have. It's time I fought for it, and I've 
 only to fight to get it. Yes, Letitia was right : fight- 
 ing's the policy; fighting against convention, duty, 
 affection, respect, all that sort of mildewed thing. 
 It's fighting does it, and only fighting. It's fighting 
 that makes one worthy, not lying down meekly in 
 front of your cruelties, your lies. . . ." 
 
 Like a torrent the irreparable disruptive words 
 flowed from Henri, as his torn heart belched forth 
 the intolerable accumulated torments of those years. 
 They came full of the acidity of fermenting wrongs. 
 He stood, this little maddened figure, faced by the 
 breaking down of his traditions, stripped of habit and 
 without a prop. He struck at all that had been dear 
 to him, all that he now hated, because he had loved 
 it and found it false; in those minutes a gospel 
 inspired him. 
 
 "... Fighting's the only duty : fighting against 
 oppression and fighting against wrong; fighting like 
 a locked-out dog that's beating at the door ; fighting 
 like a flower that's lost in stinging nettles. . . . It's 
 fighting gives you muscles and a soul, just as it's 
 peace that makes you soft, and a creature in the hands 
 of the wicked. You've got to be strong against the 
 strong, or they'll kill you; you've got to kill if you 
 don't want to be killed. . . . Mother, father, country, 
 all those things are words, things like shrouds they 
 
342 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 wrap round you before you are dead. . . . But I've 
 done with them, done with them; I'm flying from 
 them because I know they'll die when they've no 
 longer got souls to live on, poor brains to fuddle and 
 enslave. Yes, I'm going, going for ever. . . ." 
 
 " Henri ! " 
 
 "... going. You thought that I would marry 
 against your will. Well, I'm going to . . . the 
 huissier will come to you, and if you consent I won't 
 care — it's too late — and if you refuse it won't matter 
 to me. It's by putting me into gaol that you've made 
 me want to escape." 
 
 Madame Duvernoy looked dumbly on as Henri 
 strode up and down, still shouting and shaking his 
 fists. As he incoherently abused her, she realised 
 that all was over; that she had lost him, that in a 
 few minutes he would leave her alone in front of the 
 empty grate. All was broken between them, and 
 blood had become thin as water. 
 
 "That's all I've got to tell you," he said, with 
 sudden calmness. "Good-bye." 
 
 He turned to go, and all of her passionately went 
 out to him. But she did not plead : if she must die, 
 she would die fighting; she threw severity into her 
 voice. 
 
 "Comeback." 
 
 "No," he said over his shoulder. 
 
 "Where are you going to ? " 
 
 He turned, the handle of the door in his hand. He 
 looked at the stout rigid figure in black for the last 
 time, this woman who loved and tortured him, his 
 blind, devoted, cruel mother. Though his purpose 
 remained unshaken faint pity stole upon him. Too 
 late! 
 
LA DEBACLE 343 
 
 " Where are you going to ? " she asked breathlessly 
 now. 
 
 The past was washed away, and she was alien 
 to him : his voice was cold as if he spoke to a 
 stranger — 
 
 "To her." 
 
 THE END 
 
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 WORKS BY ERNEST THOMPSON SETON 
 LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTHERN ANIMALS. 
 
 M.VMMALS OF MANITOBA. With 70 maps and 600 drawings by the author. 
 In two large 8vo volumes. £3 138. 6d. net. 
 
 THE BIOGRAPHY OF A SILVER FOX. Bs.net 
 
 Daily Telegraph : — " Brightly and sympathetically told, with a touch of poetry, 
 the story of Donuno's life will delight all lovers of animals." 
 
 MONARCH THE BIG BEAR. 6s.net 
 
 Athen^um. — "Mr. Seton is as picturesque and vivid as ever in this book, the 
 writing of which shows real insight. 
 
 ANIMAL HEROES. BeingtheHlstoryofaCat, aOog:, aPigeon 
 a LynX| Two Wolves and a Reindeer. 6s. net. With 200 Illustrations by the 
 Author. 
 
 ATHEN..CUH. — " No living writer has commended himself as a man of faithful 
 observation, and the proper romantic imagination, to youth so much as Mr. Thompson 
 Seton, whose 'Animal Heroes' will be cordially welcomed and enthusiastically read 
 by all his Ent^Hsh admirers. . . . There is no trace of sentimentality in Mr. Seton's 
 writing, which b wholesome in tone and free in* manner." 
 
 TWO LITTLE SAVAG ES. Bein^ the Adventures of Two Boys 
 who lived as Indians and what they learned. With over 300 Drawings by the 
 Author. 6s. net. 
 
 ROLF IN THE WOODS. The Advemures of a Boy who took 
 to the Woods, with Quonah his Indian Guide. Illustrated by the Author. 200 
 Drawings. Large Crown 8vo. 6s. net. 
 
 London: CONSTABLE & CO. LTD., 10 Orange Street, W.C. 
 
BOOKS BY HILAIRE BELLOC. 
 
 ON ANYTHING. 5^. 
 
 A volume of Essays, uniform with the author's well-known volumes "On 
 Everything*' and "On Nothing." 
 " These essays are as a bright spring in the desert of dulness." — Eventne Standard. 
 "A little gem of accomplishment in the characteristic and best manner o? its author." 
 
 Saturday Review. 
 Reissue of a work long out of print. 
 
 THE OLD ROAD. ^s. 6d. net 
 
 The Pilgrim's Way from Wincfjester to Canterbttry. 
 New cheap Edition with photogravure frontispiece and i6 full-page illus- 
 trations by William Hyde, a map and route guides in the text. 
 
 PONGO AND THE BULL. 6s. 
 
 A new novel in the author's best vein of political satire. 
 
 "Mr. Belloc has treated his subject with the requisite airy touch. He is satirical, 
 ;ynical, and farcical as the occasion requires. At all times he is extremely amusing." 
 
 Daily Telegraph, 
 
 BOOKS BY MAURICE BARING 
 
 DEAD LETTERS. 45. dd. net 
 
 A series of Burlesque Letters by a real satirist, whose wit and scholarship 
 provoke infinite merriment, and at the same time force us to realize that 
 the miscarriage of truth in history is a larger problem than is usually 
 supposed. 
 
 *' One of those rare and delightful hooks in which the reader is invited to'smile rather 
 than to laugh, and to think even when he is most amused." — Globe, 
 
 DIMINUTIVE DRAMAS. 4^. ed. net 
 
 Uniform with " Dead Letters," and containing a number of amusing nut- 
 shell dramas based upon the author's amazing historical reconstructions, 
 including such varied material as "The Aulis Difficulty," " Calpiirnia's 
 Dinner Party," " Don Juan's Failure," "The Death of Alexander," and 
 "The Rehearsal," which last is respectfully dedicated to Mr. H. G. 
 PAlissier. 
 
 BOOKS BY H. G. WELLS 
 
 FIRST AND LAST THINGS. Crown %vo. 4X. 6//. net 
 
 A Confession of Faith and Rule of Life. 
 
 "The message of the last, the most clear headed, the gentlest, and not the least 
 courageous of all the heretics," — The Outlook. 
 
 " Frank and candid, and self-searching and self-critical. . . . This fascinating volume 
 of vivid and stimulating pages." — Athenaum. 
 
 NEW WORLDS FOR OLD 
 
 Crown ivo. 6s. ; Popular Edition, is. net 
 A dispassionate summary of the Socialist position. A challenge to serious 
 thinking people to look into the social conditions of the present day, 
 
 '" We have seldom read a book from which an honest reader could get a more whole- 
 some stimulus." — Westminster Gazette. 
 
 London: CONSTABLE &, CO. LTD., lo Orange Street, W.C. 
 
BOOKS BY 
 
 GEORGE GISSING 
 
 THE PRIVATE PAPERS OF HENRY RYECROFT : an 
 Autobiographical Sketch 
 
 Library Edition 6s. Pocket Edition on thin paper, with portrait 
 
 of the Author. 
 
 Cloth, 2s. 6d. net ; Leather, 3s. 6d. net. 
 
 " His confessions will become a favourite book with many lovers of wbat is best in 
 English literature of to-day." — Contemporary Review. 
 
 THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS AND OTHER STORIES 
 
 With an Introduction by THOMAS SECCOMBE. 6s. 
 
 '* This batch of posthumous stories are all alive with Gissing's characteristic touch.'' 
 
 Times. 
 
 VERANILADA : A Novel 
 With Prefatory Note by FREDERIC HARRISON. 6s. 
 " A story of well-sustained aad often engrossing human interest." — Spectator, 
 
 WILL WARBURTON : A Novel. 6s! 
 
 " The dialogue is deliciously crisp and clever." — Pall Mall Gazette, 
 
 BOOKS BY 
 
 ARTHUR SYMONS 
 
 PLAYS, ACTING AND MUSIC : A book of Theory 
 Second Edition. (Revised.) 6s. 
 
 STUDIES IN SEVEN ARTS. 8s. 6d. net. 
 
 SPIRITUAL ADVENTURES : A Series of Studies in 
 Temperament. 7s. 6d. net. 
 
 WILLIAM BLAKE. lOs. 6d. net. 
 
 THE SYMBOLIST MOVEMENT IN LITERATURE 
 
 6s, net. 
 
 THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT IN ENGLISH POETRY 
 lOs. 6d. net. 
 
 " The most interesting book that has been put in my hands for a long time. In the 
 future, when people have given up reading English poetry, they will read Mr. Symons' 
 book and so learn all about the poetry of one of the most important periods in the 
 literary history of England." — Saturday Review. 
 
 '* At once the trustiest and the most inspiring of guide-books. . . . Mr. Symons finds 
 something memorable to say on almost every writer he deals with." — AthentBUftl. 
 
 '* This book, like so many that have preceded it from his pen, is literature of a very 
 rare, delightful, and distinguished kind." — Westminster Gazette. 
 
 " Full of sane, illuminatmg criticism." — Spectator. 
 
 London : CONSTABLE & CO. LTD,, lo Orange Street, W.C. 
 
Four New Books o( Sport & Travel 
 
 ADVENTURE, SPORT, AND TRAVEL ON THE TIBETAN 
 STEPPES. An Acrount of the Travels of C. H. Mears and J. A. 
 . Brooke. By W. N. FERGUSSON. 
 
 With over 80 Illustrations. Jioyal 8vo. 16s. nei 
 
 Times. — " The Ground covered by Mr. Fergusson's book is much greater than the 
 
 routes followed by Baker, and as Mr. Fergusson has had the advantage of residing in 
 
 the country for years he is able to add much information, especially about the people 
 
 (the L0I05), to what was known before." ^^^^^^ 
 
 ACROSS THE ROOF OF THE WORLD. By P. T. ETHERTON, 
 
 F.R.G.S. 165. nei 
 Dailv Telegraph. — " A vivid recollection of the frost bitten travellers travelling 
 for hundreds of miles over the frozen steppes ... a really marvellous journey." 
 
 A WONDERFUL CROSSING OF UNKNOWN AFRICA BY THE GREAT 
 
 MISSIONARY-EXPLORER. 
 FROM HAUSALAND TO EGYPT. By Dr. H. KARL KUMM. 
 
 With 96 illustrations. 16s. net 
 _ Athenaeum, — " Dr. Kumm's toleration is among his admirable qualUies. A mis- 
 sionary vowed to resist the progi-ess of Islam, he appreciates the devotion of Muslim 
 pilgrims and gives them his protection and succoir; and he rides into British territory 
 escorted by Sanusi Guards.'' 
 
 THE CALL OF THE SNOWY HISPAR. a Narrative of Ex- 
 ploration and Mountain eering: on the Northern Frontier of India, by 
 WILLIAM HUNTER WORKMAN and FANNY BULLOCK WORK- 
 MAN. With over no illustrations. 
 
 Imperial Svo. 21s. nei 
 Fall Mall Gazette.—" One of the best and most satisfying books that the Work- 
 mans have given us. By the aid of lucid maps and the really splendid photographs, 
 those who care for mountaineering and mountain exploration will follow the fine work 
 done with uncommon ease and pleasure." 
 
 Works by A. G BRADLEY 
 THE FIGHT WITH FRANCE FOR NORTH AMERICA 
 
 New Illustrated Edition. Demy Svo. 5s. nei 
 Globe. — "One of the most useful contributions to the history of our Empire," 
 
 CANADA IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
 With' 50 Illustrations and Map. 5s, ne^. 
 Manchester Guardian.—" The author leaves no aspect of Canadian life untouched, 
 and has produced a book which will provide Englishmen with the best picture of Cana- 
 dian life." : 
 
 THE MAKING OF CANADA, 1763-1814 
 Illustrated. Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net 
 Globe. — " The author can claim to have done workmanlike service both to history 
 and to the Empire." 
 
 SHROPSHIRE, HEREFORD, AND MONMOUTH 
 
 With Illustrations, Demy 8vo. 5s. net. 
 Spectator. — "A singularly attractivie book . . , every page has some new and 
 various interest." 
 
 GLAMORGAN AND GOWER ' 
 
 With Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 3s. 6d. nei 
 ' Saturday Review. — "A brilliant piece of work, for which all dwellers and tourists 
 should be duly grateful to the author. ' 
 
 London: CONSTABLE & CO. LTD., lo Orange Street, W.C. 
 
THE CORNER 
 
 OF 
 
 HARLEY STREET 
 
 By PETER HARDING, M.D. 
 
 Third Impression. 4s. 6d. net. 
 
 Punch. — " The letters are the casual and unlaboured 
 utterance of a broad mind, the expression of a. nature 
 receptive, observant, just and humorous. Their point is 
 made without special pleading-, and, for all I know, their 
 author, whoever he may be, never meant to praise or even 
 defend. There are views nice and of uncommon sense, 
 upon most thing's modern ; there is at the back of them 
 just sufficient continuity of intimate history to keep alive 
 that curiosity, without which one cannot enjoy reading 
 other people's Jetters. The minute I saw the book I knew 
 I should love it ; it has that look about it. So I have read 
 it, and now I am going to read it again." 
 
 Times. — " Dr. Peter Harding writes always with fresh- 
 ness and intelligence, ranging freely over life and letters. " 
 
 Westminster Gazette. — " The writer is a man with a 
 mellow mind. He has seen a good deal of life, and after 
 seeing it he remains tolerant and optimistic." 
 
 Evening Standard. — "The author is a kindly physician, 
 and his self-revelation reveals him as lovable and sym- 
 pathetic, as well as shrewd." 
 
 Daily Graphic. — " A series of wise and witty essays, 
 written in letter form, and touching upon many problems of 
 home and professional life. " 
 
 Literary World. — ". . . this entertaining volume . . . 
 t here is much of interest to the general reader. " 
 
 London: CONSTABLE & CO. LTD. lo Orange Street W,C. 
 And of All Booksellers and Circulating I.lbraries 
 
BOOKS BY 
 
 MISS MARIE CORELLI 
 
 THE TREASURE OF HEAVEN 
 
 A Romance of Riches ; with frontispiece portrait of the Author. 
 
 DELICIA AND OTHER STORIES 
 
 Being the first volume of stories collected by the Author for 
 publication in book form. 
 
 FREE OPINIONS FREELY EXPRESSED 
 
 On certain phases of modern social life and conduct. 
 Crown 8vo. Price 6s. each. 
 
 STORIES AND TALES 
 
 By SARAH ORNE JEWETT 
 
 New Edition in 7 volumes. Each with a frontispieLCe in Photo- 
 gravure. Price 3s. net each, or 2ls. net the set, boxed. 
 
 Contents : — Deephaven — The Country of the Pointed Firs— The 
 Queen's Twin — A Native of Winby— A Country Doctor — Tales 
 of New England — The Life of Nancy. 
 
 THE WORLD OF DREAMS 
 
 By HAVELOCK ELLIS. 
 
 Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.' 
 
 The following are some of the phases of the subject that are dealt 
 with : — The Logic of Dreams — The Senses, Aviation, Symbolism, 
 and Memory in Dreams — Dreams of the Dead. 
 
 Daily News. — " Mr. Havelock Ellis is profound in his analysis, daring in his 
 imagination, pouring light upon his subject from innumerable fields of culture, 
 always suggestive, always fascinating to read." 
 
 SHEPHERDS OF BRITAIN 
 
 Their Life, Flocks, and Dogs, from the chief authorities. 
 
 Edited and arranged by ADELAIDE L. J. COSSET 
 With 60 Illustrations from Drawings and Photographs. Demy 8vo. 
 7s. 6d. net. 
 A prose anthology in praise of the shepherd and his flock, his 
 dogs, garb, arts, crafts, pastimes, and folklore. 
 
 London : CONSTABLE & CO. LTD. 10 Orange Street W.C. 
 
"This thought-compelling book ought to 
 do England invaluable service."— T>"Hf A 
 
 Sir WILLIAM BUTLER 
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 16s. net. 
 
 Daily Neiva.—" Here is a book worth reading." 
 
 Westminster Gazette.—" Here is a new light on recent history." 
 
 Morning Post—" The record Butler has left is worthy of the 
 life he lived." 
 
 Standard.— "The record of a great thinker, a brilliant soldier, 
 a high-minded gentleman." 
 
 Pall Mall Qazettp.—" None can resist the fascinating matter 
 and style of the Autobiography." 
 
 Spectator.— " A delightful narrative of adventure and the 
 revelation of a lovable character." 
 
 Mhenceum.—" More alive and alert than any other life record 
 of recent years." 
 
 SIR FREDERICK HAINES 
 
 By ROBERT S. RAIT, 
 
 FqUow of New College, Oxford. 
 
 Demy 8po. Illustrated. 10s. 6d. net, 
 
 Frederick Paul Haines fought his first battles against the Sikhs, serv- 
 ing as Lord Gough's Military Secretary. His letters describe the battles 
 of Alma and Balaclava, and are specially important as to Inkerman. 
 
 The Times.— ^* The book is of great value to students of the 
 political and military history of India in the liineteenth century." 
 
 Dally Telegraph.—" Mr. Rait has been able to make use of Sir 
 Frederick's letters and papers and has done so with good efifect, 
 so that his volume is not only a biography of the soldier, but 
 also a work throwing many fresh lights on some aspects of the 
 campaigns in which he was engaged." 
 
 Dally Chronicle.— " Mr. Rait has sketched for us the career of a 
 soldier who was as cultured as he was courageous and as blame- 
 less in all the walks of life as he was ever bold in battle— a 
 British Bayard, in fact, without fear and without reproach." 
 
 London : CONSTABLE & CO. LTD. 
 And of all Booksellers and liibraries.