nd so queerly may the mind be
wrought upon in a solitude among memories, that there were moments when
I almost expected that the door would obey my will. I was recalled to a
clearer sense of reality by something which I had not before noticed.
In the door-post to the right was a small knob of rusty iron--mocking
reminder that to gain admission to a house one does not 'will' the door:
one rings the bell--unless it is rusty and has quite obviously no one
to answer it; in which case one goes away. Yet I did not go away. The
movement that I made, in despite of myself, was towards the knob itself.
But, I hesitated, suppose I did what I half meant to do, and there were
no sound. That would be ghastly. And surely there would be no sound. And
if sound there were, wouldn't that be worse still? My hand drew
back, wavered, suddenly closed on the knob. I heard the scrape of the
wire--and then, from somewhere within the heart of the shut house, a
tinkle.

It had been the weakest, the puniest of noises. It had been no more than
is a fledgling's first attempt at a twitter. But I was not judging it by
its volume. Deafening peals from steeples had meant less to me than that
one single note breaking the silence--in there. In there, in the dark,
the bell that had answered me was still quivering, I supposed, on its
wire. But there was no one to answer it, no footstep to come hither from
those recesses, making prints in the dust. Well, I could answer it;
and again my hand closed on the knob, unhesitatingly this time, pulling
further. That was my answer; and the rejoinder to it was more than I
had thought to hear--a whole quick sequence of notes, faint but clear,
playful, yet poignantly sad, like a trill of laughter echoing out of the
past, or even merely out of this neighbouring darkness. It was so like
something I had known, so recognisable and, oh, recognising, that I was
lost in wonder. And long must I have remained standing at that door,
for I heard the sound often, often. I must have rung again and again,
tenaciously, vehemently, in my folly.

ON SPEAKING FRENCH 1919.

Wherever two Englishmen are speaking French to a Frenchman you may
safely diagnose in the breast of one of the two humiliation, envy,
ill-will, impotent rage, and a dull yearning for vengeance; and you
can take it that the degree of these emotions is in exact ratio to the
superiority of the other man's performance. In the breast of this other
are contempt, malic