ild and kept Christine in the country far away in Paris,
meaning to provide a good dowry in due course. At forty-two she had
not got the dowry together, nor even begun to get it together, and she
was ill. Feckless, dilatory and extravagant, she saw as in a
vision her own shortcomings and how they might involve disaster
for Christine. Christine, she perceived, was a girl imperfectly
educated--for in the affair of Christine's education the mother had
not aimed high enough--indolent, but economical, affectionate, and
with a very great deal of temperament. Actuated by deep maternal
solicitude, she brought her daughter back to Paris, and had her
inducted into the profession under the most decent auspices. At
nineteen Christine's second education was complete. Most of it the
mother had left to others, from a sense of propriety. But she herself
had instructed Christine concerning the five great plagues of the
profession. And also she had adjured her never to drink alcohol save
professionally, never to invest in anything save bonds of the City of
Paris, never to seek celebrity, which according to the mother meant
ultimate ruin, never to mix intimately with other women. She had
expounded the great theory that generosity towards men in small things
is always repaid by generosity in big things--and if it is not the
loss is so slight! And she taught her the fundamental differences
between nationalities. With a Russian you had to eat, drink and
listen. With a German you had to flatter, and yet adroitly insert, "Do
not imagine that I am here for the fun of the thing." With an Italian
you must begin with finance. With a Frenchman you must discuss finance
before it is too late. With an Englishman you must talk, for he will
not, but in no circumstances touch finance until he has mentioned
it. In each case there was a risk, but the risk should be faced. The
course of instruction finished, Christine's mother had died with a
clear conscience and a mind consoled.

Said Christine, conversational, putting the question that lips seemed
then to articulate of themselves in obedience to its imperious demand
for utterance:

"How long do you think the war will last?"

The man answered with serenity: "The war has not begun yet."

"How English you are! But all the same, I ask myself whether you would
say that if you had seen Belgium. I came here from Ostend last month."
The man gazed at her with new vivacious interest.

"So it is like that that