tact of the woman!

She herself cooked our simple dinner to Jeanne's voluble accompaniment
of regret: the chicken from her own brood, the salad from her garden,
the delicious pastry that her own hands had put into the oven. After
dinner, during which we drank Jeanne's health and took her a glass of
the wine I always brought with me for the stocking of her
unpretentious cellar (the neighbours had never been able to regard
this addition to my mother's table without suspicion and regret) my
father's favourite brand of cigars was produced and I dutifully smoked
one. I had not inherited his taste in this instance, but for years I
had respectfully made this filial sacrifice and my mother would have
been seriously hurt had I foregone it.

We talked of anything but what was in our minds: the wonderful late
planting of peas; the beauties of Kitchener, who was formally
introduced to Jeanne and listened with perfect good breeding to a long
account (in French) of the departed family poodle; the kindness of the
old parish priest to Jeanne; the war-scare in the East (my mother
religiously took in the London Times and watched Russia with unceasing
vigilance) the shocking price of meat. Later she brought out my old
violin and I played all her favourites while she accompanied me on the
little cottage piano my father had bought for her when they began
life together. If a tear dropped now and then on the yellow keys,
neither of us took it too seriously, and it was a pleasant, soothing
evening on the whole. My nerves relaxed unconsciously, and Jeanne's
wild applause as one after another of her particular tunes rang out
(_Parlons-nous de lui, Grandmere, Sous les Tilleuls_ and _Je sais
bien, mon amour_) gave me an absurd thrill of musicianly vanity.

I slept in my own little room with the prim black walnut bedroom suit,
the prize-books in a row on the corner shelf, the worn rug made from
the minister's calf that I shot by mistake, and my father's sword,
with its faded tassel, over my bed. By some odd chance all my dreams
that night were of those boyish days, and it was with sincere surprise
that I stared on waking at my long moustache, in the toilet mirror--we
were not so universally clean shaven twenty years ago.

My steamer sailed at noon from Boston, and to my intense delight there
was no one on board that I knew. Unattended and unwept Kitchener and I
marched up the gang plank, and I pointed out to him the conveniences
and eccentrici