he window, and from what I
could see in the grayness I guessed that we were somewhere or other
between Rappallo and Spezzia. As the light grew slowly clearer the
prospects were still bleak, but yet with the following of one chill five
minutes on another some change was, it seemed, in progress. The gray air
acquired a tinge of purple, the chill turned to warmth, the thin purple
turned to a soft, enveloping bloom; and when the train reached San Remo
a sunrise worthy of midsummer was shining on a world of roses.

Cannes, though the season was not far from its close, was as yet by no
means empty. As I drove to my hotel the streets were alive with
carriages, white skirts, and the shining of red sunshades. I was soon
asked to participate in a number of forthcoming dissipations, the first
of these being a tea party given by Philip Green at his villa, "La
Foret," which was close to my own doors. The company comprised a
charming and interesting group of French ex-royalties, and a live German
king, who looked like a commercial traveler. This party remains in my
mind as though it were a vignette on the last page of a diary, the
principal entries in which related to a land of which Catherine Cornaro
was the last royal ruler, and whose last democracy was democracy as
understood by the doges.

On the whole, my expedition to Cyprus, which, together with its two
sequels, had occupied about four months, did for me more than I had
ever seriously expected. It was at once a stimulus and a rest. I
returned to England in May, pleased with the prospect of enjoying a
couple of months of London, after which, in Scotland and elsewhere, I
hoped to resume my study of political and social problems, and restate
them in forms which politicians might find useful. This labor was,
however, often interrupted by the pressure of family business, which
would call me back for a week or ten days to Devonshire. When the more
urgent details were for the time settled, as they were toward the end of
the year, I went once more to Cannes, and subsequently to the Cap
d'Antibes, being one of a small party who were to stay at the same
hotels and lunch and dine in private. No such arrangement could possibly
have prospered better. I had, as I knew I should have, much time to
myself, and among my luggage was a boxload of statistical Blue Books,
which formed my companions in hours of industrious solitude. We made a
number of expeditions to old towns in the hills, one of