gure passed along the end of the corridor. I could
not see plainly, but I could have sworn it was Miss Sharp--I called her
name--but no one answered me so I went on out,--the servant, aged
ninety, now joining me, he assisted me into my one horse Victoria beyond
the concierge's lodge.

Miss Sharp and the Duchesse!--? Why if this is so have I never been told
about it?--The very moment Maurice returns I must get him to investigate
all about the girl--In the meantime I think I shall go to Versailles--.
I cannot stand Paris any longer--and the _masseur_ can come out there,
it is not an impossible distance away.

VII

RESERVOIRES, VERSAILLES.
September 10th.

How I love Versailles--the jolliest old hole on earth--(I wonder why one
uses slang like this, I had written those words as an exact reflection
of my thoughts--and nothing could be more inexact as a description of
Versailles! It is as far from being "jolly" as a place can be--nor is it
a "hole!") It is the greatest monument which the vanity of one man ever
erected, and like all other superlatives it holds and interests. If the
_Grand Monarque_ squandered millions to build it, France has reaped
billions from the pockets of strangers who have come to look at it. And
so everything that is well done brings its good. Each statue is a
personal friend of mine--and since I was a boy I have been in love with
the delicious nymph with the shell at the bottom of the horse-shoe
descent before you come to the _tapis vert_ on the right hand side. She
has two dimples in her back--I like to touch them--.

Why did I not come here sooner? I am at peace with the world--Burton
wheels me up onto the terrace every evening to watch the sunset from the
top of the great steps. All the masterpieces are covered with pent
houses of concrete faced with straw, but the lesser gods and goddesses
must take their chance.

And sitting here with peaceful families near me--old
gentlemen--soldiers on leave--a pretty war widow with a great white
dog--children with spades--all watching the glorious sky, seated in
groups on the little iron park chairs, a sense of stupefaction comes
over me--for a hundred or two kilometres away men are killing one
another--women are searching for some trace of their homes--the ground
is teeming with corpses--the air is foetid with the smell of death!
And yet we enjoy the opal su