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bookshop?”
    He smiled down at her, a white-toothed, strangely attractive smile.
    “Not me,” he said—’certainly not me!”
    “But”—and she looked puzzled---------“can you afford to
    employ someone to do a job that you could do so easily yourself? After all, if the bookshop is a means of livelihood...”
    “Partially,” he reminded her. “Do not forget that it is only a partial means of livelihood. It is Armand who prevents me from joining the bread queues.”
    “There are no bread queues in Paris,” she returned, a little impatiently, “and you know it. And if there were, your appearance suggests that it would be a very long time before you joined them. But I don’t understand how you can be so dependent on the generosity of a friend.”
    “Ah, but then you do not know how thrustful is the generosity of Armand! It reaches out and grasps at one like an eager and determined tentacle—it is almost, if not quite, his only virtue! In fact, I do not know of any other single virtue that he possesses, but far be it from me to appear critical of a benefactor on such a morning as this.” Once more his eyes dropped to the moat, and he smiled one-sidedly at the moorhens returning under the bridge. “Look at them! Is it not peaceful? Does not the sight of that simple brood, the thought of their untroubled existence, make you want to renounce the dubious delights of town life for always?”
    “So far as I am concerned,” she replied simply, “town life has few delights.”
    “Is that so?” He glanced at her curiously sideways. “You are one of the earnest ones—the toilers?” he said, softly. “For you life means work?”
    “I have to work to keep myself.”
    “That is sad,” and he sounded as if he meant it.
    “But when I come to a place like this I can appreciate it all the more,” she told him truthfully.
    “Ah!” He followed her glance up to the front of the chateau. In the soft, clear light of morning it was gently stone-coloured, and the lovely line of windows something to inspire poetry. There was one window that was very impressive, and she decided that it was the window of the great hall. The blue of the sky was imprisoned between its lace-like framework, and the constant movement of the trees cast flickering shadows across it. “You like it here?” he asked, even more softly.
    “If this house belonged to me,” she answered, as if compelled, “I would never, never leave it!”
    “Never is a long time,” he reminded her thoughtfully. She looked round at him and met his eyes.
    “To you it would seem a very long time in a place like this?”
    “It depends,” he replied, and his eyes were on the slender column of her throat as she put back her head. At the moment it was a delicately cream-coloured throat, but in this atmosphere, and this sunshine, it would soon become lightly tanned. He was not at all sure that he wouldn’t prefer it to remain as it was, reminiscent of the pale stem of a flower. “It depends,” he repeated.
    “On what?”
    “On the conditions under which I was forced to remain here forever,” and he smiled at her brilliantly.
    Pierre returned with the coffee, and a napkin-lined basket of crisp rolls. There was already butter on the table very yellow butter, which Marthe had shaped into tempting pats—and several dishes of preserve, and de Bergerac turned as if he had suddenly discovered that he was very hungry again. As she buttered her own first roll Caroline got on to the subject that was really troubling her.
    “What about Marthe?” she asked. “You have had news of her this morning Pierre tells me?”
    “I telephoned the hospital, yes. I shall be going to see her later in the day.”
    “And you’ll take me with you?” she asked eagerly. “Oh, please do!” as one of his dark eyebrows cocked. “I am so anxious to see her, and I have no other means of transport unless you’ll take me with you. And naturally Marthe will expect me to visit