pt you,' he said. I smiled at him, a little
sadly, a little cynically. 'It is I who have given you the greatest
gift,' I said. 'I have given you a regret and an illusion. Vous avez
donc tout eu.' That night he killed himself."

"And you, Paula, did you feel a murderess?"

"No, a saviour."

* * * * *

She was dressed in pale lilac--the coolest lilac in the world. It
rippled round her like loving caressing waves.

"What is your dress called, Paula?"

"Oasis," she said. "'Indian summer' would have been a better name."

"Tell me about it."

"Why do you always want to know?"

"I am writing a book."

"Tant pis."

She was out of temper.

The flowers arrived.

Old-fashioned pink roses, coral carnations, purple stocks, pink pinks,
mauve orchids, moss roses, patterned chintz-like phlox.

"Oh!" she said, and for a moment she shut her eyes.

Then:

"Tell me about her," she said.

"Marthe?"

"Is that her name?"

"She is vibrant."

"But of course. What does she look like?"

"Her hair is like a dirty new coin. You feel that you could polish it
into brightness. Her eyes are like tea--yellow camomile tea. Her mouth
is big and rather grave. There are electric waves of aliveness running
all through her."

"I do not like her."

"No?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"All that irrelevant, interfering vitality. It is dangerous."

"And slumbering, mysterious magnetism, is that not dangerous?"

"That, too."

There was a thunderstorm and the air got cool.

Madame Marly had a headache and dined in her room.

* * * * *

The next day was grey--grey air, a grey sky, a grey countryside, a grey
sea--not luminous, lustrous grey, but opaque chiffon drawn across the
world.

Paula's flowers had arrived--lemon-coloured hollyhocks, blue and mauve
and purple delphiniums, filmy love-in-the-mist, primrose antirrhinums,
snowy Madonna lilies with golden middles, huge creamy roses, tiny yellow
rosebuds, straggling larkspurs.

She was dressed in a grey whipcord coat and skirt with a grey swathed
turban. She looked distant--on the brink of disappearance--not so much
as if she were going to travel but as if she were going to vanish.

She regarded the flowers with grave concentration. It was as if she felt
for them a stern passionate devotion. She took one of the white roses
and stroked it--as if it were a shy mother with her first child. Then
she said:

"I want to