Told in a French Garden August, 1914

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Ti­tle: Told in a French Gar­den Au­gust, 1914

Au­thor: Mil­dred Aldrich

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TOLD IN A FRENCH GAR­DEN

AU­GUST, 1914

BY _Mil­dred Aldrich_

_Au­thor of_ _“A Hill­top on the Marne”_

BOSTON SMALL, MAY­NARD & COM­PA­NY 1916

Copy­right, 1916 BY MIL­DRED ALDRICH

TO

F. E. C.

a prince of com­rades and a roy­al friend, whose quaint hu­mor glad­dened the days of my ear­ly strug­gle, and whose un­fail­ing faith in­spired me in lat­er days to turn a smil­ing face to Fate

CON­TENTS

CHAP­TER IN­TRO­DUC­TION How We Came in­to the Gar­den

I THE YOUNG­STER'S STO­RY It Hap­pened at Mid­night--The Tale of a Bride's New Home

II THE TRAINED NURSE'S STO­RY The Son of Josephine--The Tale of a Foundling

III THE CRIT­IC'S STO­RY 'Twas in the In­di­an Sum­mer--The Tale of an Ac­tress

IV THE DOC­TOR'S STO­RY As One Dreams--The Tale of an Ado­les­cent

V THE SCULP­TOR'S STO­RY Un­to This End--The Tale of a Vir­gin

VI THE DI­VORCEE'S STO­RY One Wom­an's Phi­los­ophy--The Tale of a Mod­ern Wife

VII THE LAWYER'S STO­RY The Night Be­fore the Wed­ding--The Tale of a Bride-​Elect

VI­II THE JOUR­NAL­IST'S STO­RY In a Rail­way Sta­tion--The Tale of a Dancer

IX THE VI­OLIN­IST'S STO­RY The Soul of the Song--The Tale of a Fi­ancee

X EPI­LOGUE Adieu--How We Went Out of the Gar­den

TOLD IN A FRENCH GAR­DEN

IN­TRO­DUC­TION

HOW WE CAME IN­TO THE GAR­DEN

It was by a strange irony of Fate that we found our­selves re­unit­ed for a sum­mer's out­ing, in a French gar­den, in Ju­ly, 1914.

With the ex­cep­tion of the Young­ster, we had hard­ly met since the days of our youth.

We were a par­ty of unattached peo­ple, six men, two wom­en, your hum­ble ser­vant, and the Young­ster, who was an out­sider.

With the ex­cep­tion of the lat­ter, we had all gone to school or col­lege or danc­ing class to­geth­er, and kept up a sort of su­per­fi­cial ac­quain­tance ev­er since--that sort of re­la­tion in which peo­ple know some­thing of one an­oth­er's opin­ions and ab­so­lute­ly noth­ing of one an­oth­er's re­al lives.

There was the Doc­tor, who had stud­ied long in Ger­many, and be­come an au­thor­ity on men­tal dis­eases, de­vel­oped a dis­taste for ther­apeu­tics, and a pas­sion for re­search and the lab­ora­to­ry. There was the Lawyer, who knew in­ter­na­tion­al law as he knew his Greek al­pha­bet, and hat­ed a court room. There was the Vi­olin­ist, who was known the world over in mu­si­cal sets,--ev­ery­where, ex­cept in the con­cert room. There was the Jour­nal­ist, who had trav­elled in­to al­most as many queer places as Richard Bur­ton, seen more wars, and fol­lowed more call­ings. There was the Sculp­tor, the fame of whose greater fa­ther had al­most par­alyzed a pair of good mod­eller's hands. There was the Crit­ic, whose friends be­lieved that in him the world had lost a great ro­mancer, but whom a com­bi­na­tion of hunger and lazi­ness, and a prone­ness to think that noth­ing not ge­nius was worth while, had con­demned to be a mere bread­win­ner, but a bread­win­ner who squeezed a lot out of life, and who fer­vent­ly be­lieved that in his next in­car­na­tion he would re­al­ly be “it.” Then there was “Me,” and of the oth­er two wom­en--one was a Trained Nurse, and the oth­er a Di­vorcee, and--well, none of us re­al­ly knew just what she had be­come, but we knew that she was very rich, and very hand­some, and had a lean­ing to­ward some sort of new re­li­gion. As for the Young­ster--he was the son of an old chum of the Doc­tor--his ward, in fact--and his hob­by was fly­ing.

Our re­union, af­ter so many years, was a rather pret­ty sto­ry.

In the sum­mer of 1913, the Doc­tor and the Di­vorcee, who had lost sight of one an­oth­er for twen­ty years, met by chance in Paris. Her ex-​hus­band had been a col­lege friend of the Doc­tor. They saw a great deal of one an­oth­er in the lazy way that peo­ple who re­al­ly love France, and are done sight­see­ing, can do.

One day it oc­curred to them to take a day's trip in­to the coun­try, as unattached peo­ple now and then can do. They might have gone out in a car--but they chose the rail­road, with a walk at the end--on the prin­ci­ple that no one can know and love a coun­try who does not press its earth be­neath his feet,--the Doc­tor would prob­ably have said, “lay his head up­on its bo­som.” By an ac­ci­dent--they missed a train--they found them­selves at sun­set of a beau­ti­ful day in a small vil­lage, and with no pos­si­ble way of get­ting back to Paris that night un­less they chose to walk fif­teen miles to the near­est rail­way junc­tion. Af­ter a long day's tramp that seemed too much of a good thing.

So they looked about to find a shel­ter for the night. The vil­lage--it was on­ly a ham­let--had no ho­tel, no cafe, even. Fi­nal­ly an old peas­ant said that old Moth­er Servin--a wid­ow--liv­ing a mile up the road--had a big house, lived alone, and could take them in,--if she want­ed to,--he could not say that she would.

It seemed to them worth try­ing, so they start­ed off in high spir­its to tramp an­oth­er mile, de­cid­ing that, if worse be­came worst--well--the night was warm--they could sleep by the road­side un­der the stars.

It was near the hour when it should have been dark--but in France at that sea­son one can al­most read out of doors un­til nine--when they found the place. With some de­lay the gate in the stone wall was opened, and they were face to face with the old wid­ow.

It was a long ar­gu­ment, but the Doc­tor had a win­ning way, and at the end they were tak­en in,--more, they were fed in the big clean kitchen, and then each was shel­tered in a huge room, with ce­ment floor, scrupu­lous­ly clean, with the quaint old fur­ni­ture and the queer ap­point­ments of a French farm­house.

The next morn­ing, when the Doc­tor threw open the heavy wood­en shut­ters to his win­dow, he gave a whis­tle of de­light to find him­self look­ing out in­to what seemed to be a French Par­adise--and bet­ter than that he had nev­er asked.

It was a wilder­ness. Way off in the dis­tance he got glimpses of bro­ken walls with all kinds of green things creep­ing and climb­ing, and hang­ing on for life. In­side the walls there was a ri­ot of flow­ers--hol­ly­hocks and giroflees, dahlias and phlox, pop­pies and huge daisies, and ros­es ev­ery­where, even climb­ing old tree trunks, and sprawl­ing all over the gar­den front of the ram­bling house. The edges of the paths had green bor­ders that told of Cor­beil d'Ar­gent in Mid­win­ter, and vi­olets in ear­ly spring. He leaned out and looked along the house. It was just a jum­ble of all sorts of build­ings which had ev­ident­ly been added at dif­fer­ent times. It seemed to be on half a dozen el­eva­tions, and no two win­dows were of the same size, while here and there an out­side stair­case led up in­to a loft.

Once he had tak­en it in he dressed like a flash--he could not get out in­to that gar­den quick­ly enough, to pray the Wid­ow to serve cof­fee un­der a huge tree in the cen­tre of the gar­den, about the trunk of which a rude ta­ble had been built, and it was there that the Di­vorcee found him when she came out, sim­ply glow­ing with en­thu­si­asm--the house, the gar­den, the Wid­ow, the day--ev­ery­thing was per­fect.

While they were tak­ing their cof­fee, poured from the earth­en jug, in the thick old Rouen cups, the Di­vorcee said:

“How I'd love to own a place like this. No one would ev­er dream of build­ing such a house. It has tak­en cen­turies of ac­cu­mu­lat­ed needs to ex­pand it in­to be­ing. If one tried to do the thing all at once it would look too on-​pur­pose. This place looks like a hap­py com­bi­na­tion of cir­cum­stances which could not help it­self.”

“Well, why not? It might be pos­si­ble to have just this. Let's ask the Wid­ow.”

So, when they were sit­ting over their cigarettes, and the old wom­an was clear­ing the ta­ble, the Doc­tor looked her over, and con­sid­ered the road of ap­proach.

She was a rugged old wom­an, well on to­ward eighty, with a bronzed, weath­er-​worn face, abun­dant coarse gray hair, a heavy shape­less fig­ure, but a firm bear­ing, in spite of her round­ed back. As far as they could see, they were alone on the place with her. The Doc­tor de­cid­ed to jump right in­to the sub­ject.

“Moth­er,” he said, “I sup­pose you don't want to sell this place?”

The old wom­an eyed him a mo­ment with her sharp dark eyes.

“But, yes, _Mon­sieur_,” she replied. “I should like it very well, on­ly it is not pos­si­ble. No one would be will­ing to pay my price. Oh, no, no one. No, in­deed.”

“Well,” said the Doc­tor, “how do you know that? What is the price?--Is it per­mit­ted to ask?”

The old wom­an hes­itat­ed,--start­ed to speak--changed her mind, and turned away, mut­ter­ing. “Oh, no, _Mon­sieur_,--it is not worth the trou­ble--no one will ev­er pay my price.”

The Doc­tor jumped up, laugh­ing, ran af­ter her, took her by the arm, and led her back to the ta­ble.

“Now, come, come, Moth­er,” he re­marked, “let us hear the price at any rate. I am so cu­ri­ous.”

“Well,” said the Wid­ow, “it is like this. I would like to get for it what my broth­er paid for it, when he bought it at the death of my fa­ther--it was to set­tle with the rest of the heirs--we were eight then. They are all dead but me. But no, no one will ev­er pay that price, so I may as well let it go to my niece. She is the last. She doesn't need it. She has land enough. The cul­ti­va­tor has a hard time these days. It is as much as I can do to make the old place feed me and pay the tax­es, and I am get­ting old. But no one will ev­er pay the price, and what will my broth­er think of me when the _bon Dieu_ calls me, if I sell it for less than he paid? As for that, I don't know what he'll say to me for sell­ing it at all. But I am get­ting old to live here alone--all alone. But no one will ev­er pay the price. So I may as well die here, and then my broth­er can't blame me. But it is lone­ly now, and I am grow­ing too old. Be­sides, I don't sup­pose _you_ want to buy it. What would a gen­tle­man do with this?”

“Well,” said the Doc­tor, “I don't re­al­ly know what a _gen­tle­man would_ do with it,” and he added, un­der his breath, in En­glish, “but I know mighty well what this fel­low _could_ do with it, if he could get it,” and he light­ed a fresh cigarette.

The keen old eyes had watched his face.

“I don't sup­pose _you_ want to buy it?” she per­sist­ed.

“Well,” re­spond­ed the Doc­tor, “how can a poor man like me say, if you don't care to name your price, and un­less that price is with­in rea­son?”

Af­ter some min­utes of hes­ita­tion the old wom­an drew a deep breath. “Well,” she said, with the de­ter­mi­na­tion of one who ex­pect­ed to be scoffed at, “I won't take a _sou_ less than my broth­er paid.”

“Come on, Moth­er,” said the Doc­tor, “what _did_ your broth­er pay? No non­sense, you know.”

“Well, if you must know--it was FIVE THOU­SAND FRANCS, and I can't and won't sell it for less. There, now!”

There was a long si­lence.

The Doc­tor and his com­pan­ion avoid­ed one an­oth­er's eyes. Af­ter a while, he said in an un­der­tone, in En­glish: “By Jove, I'm go­ing to buy it.”

“No, no,” re­mon­strat­ed his com­pan­ion, her eyes gaz­ing down the gar­den vista to where the wis­taria and clema­tis and flam­ing trum­pet flow­er flaunt­ed on the old wall. “I am go­ing to have it--I thought of it first. I want it.”

“So do I,” laughed the Doc­tor. “Nev­er want­ed any­thing more in all my life.”

“For how long,” she asked, “would a rover like you want this?”

“Rover your­self! And you? Be­sides what dif­fer­ence does it make how _long_ I want it--since I want it _now_? I want to give a par­ty--haven't giv­en a par­ty since--since Class Day.”

The Di­vorcee sighed. Still gaz­ing down the gar­den she said qui­et­ly: “How well I re­mem­ber--nine­ty-​two!”

Then there was an­oth­er si­lence be­fore she turned to him sud­den­ly: “See here--all this is very ir­reg­ular-​so, that be­ing the case--why shouldn't we buy it to­geth­er? We know each oth­er. Nei­ther of us will ev­er stay here long. One sum­mer apiece will sat­is­fy us, though it is love­ly. Be a sport. We'll draw lots as to who is to have the first par­ty.”

The Doc­tor waved the old wom­an away. Her keen eyes watched too sharply. Then, with their el­bows on the ta­ble, they had a long and heat­ed ar­gu­ment. Prob­ably there were more things touched on than the gar­den. Who knows? At the end of it the Di­vorcee walked away down that gar­den vista, and the old wom­an was called and the Doc­tor took her at her word. And out of that ar­range­ment emerged the scheme which re­sult­ed in our find­ing our­selves, a year lat­er, with­in the old walls of that French gar­den.

Of course a year's work had been done on the in­te­ri­or, and Doc­tor and Di­vorcee had scoured the de­part­ment for old fur­ni­ture. Wa­ter had been brought a great dis­tance, a garage had been built with ser­vants' quar­ters over it--there were no ser­vants in the house,--but the look of the place, we were as­sured, had not been changed, and both Doc­tor and Di­vorcee de­clared that they had had the year of their lives. Well, if they had, the place showed it.

But, as Fate would have it, the sec­ond night we sat down to din­ner in that gar­den, news had come of the as­sas­si­na­tion of Franz Fer­di­nand-​Charles-​Louis Joseph-​Marie d'Autriche-​Este, whom the trag­ic death of Prince Rudolphe, al­most ex­act­ly twen­ty-​four years and six months ear­li­er to a day, had made Crown Prince of Aus­tria-​Hun­gary--and the tone of our gath­er­ing was changed. From that day the par­ty threat­ened to be­come a lit­tle Bed­lam, and the gar­den a ros­trum.

In the ear­li­er days it did not make so much dif­fer­ence. The talk was good. We were a trav­elled group, and what with rem­inis­cences of peo­ple and places, and the scan­dal of courts, it was far from be­ing dull. But as the days went on, and the war clouds be­gan to gath­er, the over­charged air seemed to get on the nerves of the en­tire group, and in­stead of the peace­ful sum­mer we had count­ed up­on, ev­ery one of us seemed to live in his own par­tic­ular kind of fever. Ev­ery one of us, down to the Young­ster, had fixed ideas, deep-​set the­ories, and con­vic­tions as dif­fer­ent as our char­ac­ters, our lives, our call­ings, and our faiths. We were all Cos­mopoli­tan Amer­icans, but ready to spread the Ea­gle, if nec­es­sary, and all of us, ex­cept the Vi­olin­ist, of New Eng­land ex­trac­tion, which means re­al­ly of En­glish blood, and that _will_ show when the screws are put on. We had nev­er thought of the Vi­olin­ist as not one of us, but he was re­al­ly of Pol­ish ori­gin. His great-​grand­fa­ther had been a com­pan­ion of Adam Czartoris­ki in the up­ris­ing of 1830, and had gone to the States when the amnesty was not ex­tend­ed to his chief af­ter that re­bel­lion, Poland's last, had been stamped out.

As well as I can re­mem­ber it was the night of Au­gust 6th that the first se­ri­ous dis­pute arose. Eng­land had de­clared war. All our male ser­vants had left us ex­cept two Amer­ican chauf­feurs, and a cou­ple of old out­side men. Two of our four cars, and all our hors­es but one had been req­ui­si­tioned. That did not up­set us. We had tak­en on the wives of some of the men, among them An­gele, the pret­ty wife of one of the French chauf­feurs, and her two-​months-​old ba­by in­to the bar­gain. We still had two cars, that, at a pinch, would car­ry the par­ty, and we still had one mount in case of ne­ces­si­ty.

The ques­tion arose as to whether we should break up and make for the near­est port while we could, or “stick it out.” It had been fi­nal­ly agreed not to evac­uate--_yet_. One does not of­ten get such a chance to see a coun­try at war, and we were all ar­dent spec­ta­tors, and all unattached. I imag­ine not one of us had at that time any idea of be­ing use­ful--the stu­pen­dous­ness of it all had not dawned on any of us--un­less it was the Doc­tor.

But af­ter the de­ci­sion of “stick” had been passed unan­imous­ly, the Crit­ic, who was a bit of a sen­ti­men­tal­ist, and if he were any­thing else was a Nor­man An­gel-​lite, stuck his hands in his pock­ets, and re­marked: “Af­ter all, it is per­fect­ly safe to stay, es­pe­cial­ly now that Eng­land is com­ing in.”

“You think so?” said the Doc­tor.

“Sure,” smiled the Crit­ic. “The Ger­mans will nev­er cross the French fron­tier this time. This is not 1870.”

“Won't they, and isn't it?” replied the Doc­tor sharply.

“They nev­er can get by Ver­dun and Belfort.”

“Nev­er said they could,” re­marked the Doc­tor, with a tone as near to a sneer as a good-​na­tured host can al­low him­self. “But they'll in­vade fast enough. I know what I am talk­ing about.”

“You don't mean to tell me,” said the Crit­ic, “that a na­tion like Ger­many--I'm talk­ing now about the peo­ple, the coun­try that has been the hot bed of So­cial­ism,--will stand for a war of in­va­sion?”

That start­ed the Doc­tor off. He flayed the the­orists, the peo­ple who rea­soned with their emo­tions and not their brains, the mob that looked at ex­ter­nals, and nev­er saw the fires be­neath, the throng that was un­able to un­der­stand any­thing out­side its own hori­zon, the mass that pre­tend­ed to read the his­to­ry of the world, and be­cause it changed its clothes imag­ined that it had changed its spir­it.

“Why, I've lived in Ger­many,” he cried. “I was ed­ucat­ed there. I know them. I have the mis­for­tune to un­der­stand them. They'll stick to­geth­er and So­cial­ism go hang--as long as there is a hope of vic­to­ry. The Con­fed­er­ation was ce­ment­ed in the blood of vic­to­ry. It can on­ly be dis­solved in the blood of de­feat. They are a great, a well-​dis­ci­plined, and an obe­di­ent peo­ple.”

“One would think you ad­mired them and their mil­itary sys­tem,” re­marked the Crit­ic, a bit crest-​fall­en at the at­tack.

“I may not, but I'll tell you one sure thing if you want a good cir­cus you've got to train your an­imals. The Kaiser has been a cork­ing ring­mas­ter.”

Of course this got a laugh, and though both Crit­ic and Jour­nal­ist tried to strike fire again with words like “democ­ra­cy” and “civ­iliza­tion,” the Doc­tor had cooled down, and noth­ing could stir him again that night.

Still the dis­cord had been sown. I sup­pose the din­ner-​ta­ble talk was on­ly a sam­ple of what was go­ing on, in that month, all over the world. It did not help mat­ters that as the days went on we all re­al­ized that the Doc­tor had been right--that France was to be in­vad­ed, not across her own prop­er fron­tier, but across un­pro­tect­ed Bel­gium. This seemed so atro­cious to most of us that in­dig­na­tion could on­ly ex­press it­self in abuse. There was not a night that the din­ner-​ta­ble talk was not bit­ter. You see the Doc­tor did not ex­pect the world ev­er to be per­fect--did not know that he want­ed it to be--be­lieved in the strug­gle. On the oth­er hand the Crit­ic, and in a cer­tain sense the Jour­nal­ist, in spite of their ex­pe­ri­ences, were more or less Utopi­an, and the Sculp­tor and the Vi­olin­ist pure­ly spec­ta­tors.

No need to go in­to the de­tails of the heat­ed ar­gu­ments. They were on­ly the echo of what all the world,--that had cra­dled it­self in­to the be­lief that a great war among the great na­tions had be­come, for eco­nom­ic as well as hu­man­itar­ian rea­sons, im­pos­si­ble,--were, I imag­ine, at this time say­ing.

As near­ly as I can re­mem­ber it was on Au­gust 20th that the cli­max came. Liege had fall­en. The En­glish Ex­pe­di­tion had land­ed, and was march­ing on Bel­gium. A vic­to­ri­ous Ger­man army had goose-​stepped in­to de­fense­less Brus­sels, and was sweep­ing out to­ward the French fron­tier. The French ad­vance in­to Al­sace had been a blun­der.

The Doc­tor re­marked that “the En­glish had land­ed twelve days too late,” and the Jour­nal­ist drew a graph­ic, and pure­ly imag­inary, pic­ture of the pathos of the Bel­gians strain­ing their eyes in vain to the West for the com­ing of the men in kha­ki, and un­for­tu­nate­ly he let him­self ex­pa­ti­ate a bit on Ger­man meth­ods.

The spark touched the Doc­tor off.

“By Jove,” he said, “all you sen­ti­men­tal­ists read the His­to­ry of the World with your in­tel­lects in your breech­es pock­ets. War is not a game for ba­bies. It is war--it is not sport. You chaps think war can be pre­vent­ed. All I ask you is--why hasn't it been pre­vent­ed? In ev­ery gen­er­ation that we know any­thing about there have been some pret­ty fine men who have been of your opin­ion--Eras­mus for one, and how many oth­ers? But since the gen­er­ations have con­tent­ed them­selves with talk­ing, and not talked war out of the prob­lem, why, I can't see, for my part, that Ger­many's way is not as good as any. She is in to win, and so are all the rest of them. Schools of War are like the Schools of Art you chaps talk so much about--it does not make much dif­fer­ence what school one be­longs to--the on­ly im­por­tant thing is mak­ing good.”

“One would think,” said the Jour­nal­ist, “that you _liked_ such a war.”

“Well, I don't even know that I can de­ny that. I would not de­lib­er­ate­ly _choose_ it. But I am will­ing to ac­cept it, and I am not a bit sen­ti­men­tal about it. I am not even sure that it was not need­ed. The world has let the Kaiser sit twen­ty-​five years on a throne an­nounc­ing him­self as 'God's anoint­ed.' His pre­ten­sions have been treat­ed se­ri­ous­ly by all the democ­ra­cies of the world. What for? Pure­ly for per­son­al gain. We have come to a pass where there is lit­tle a man won't do--for per­son­al gain. The busi­ness of the world, and its diplo­ma­cy, have all be­come so com­pli­cat­ed and cor­rupt that a large per­cent­age of the brains of hon­est mankind are lit­tle will­ing to touch ei­ther. We need shak­ing up--all of us. If noth­ing can make man re­al­ize that he was not born to be mere­ly hap­py and get rich, or to have a fine old time, why, such a com­plete up­heaval as this seems to me to be nec­es­sary, and for me--if this war can rip off, with its shrap­nel, the self­ish­ness with which pros­per­ity has en­crust­ed the lucky: if it can ex­plode our false val­ues with its bombs: if it can break down our ab­surd pre­ten­sions with its can­non,--all I can say is that Ger­many will have done mis­sion­ary work for the whole world--her­self in­clud­ed.”

Be­fore he had done, we were all on our feet shout­ing at him, all but the Lawyer, who smiled in­to his cof­fee cup.

“Why,” cried the Crit­ic, in anger, “one would think you held a brief for them!”

“I do NOT,” snapped the Doc­tor, “but I don't dis­like them any more than I do--well,” catch­ing him­self up with a laugh, “lots of oth­er peo­ple.”

“And you mean to tell me,” said the gen­tle voice of the Di­vorcee at his el­bow, “that you calm­ly face the idea of the hun­dreds of thou­sands of men,--well and strong to-​day--dead to-​mor­row,--the thought of the moth­ers who have borne their sons in pain, and bred them in love, on­ly to fling them be­fore the can­non?”

“For what, af­ter all, _are_ we born?” said the Doc­tor. “_Where_ we die, or _when_ is a tri­fle, since die we must. But _why_ we die and _how_ is vi­tal. It is not on­ly vi­tal to the man that goes--it is vi­tal to the race. It is the strug­gle, it is the fight, which, no mat­ter what form it takes, makes life worth liv­ing. Men strug­gle for mon­ey. Fi­nanciers stran­gle one an­oth­er at the Bourse. Peo­ple look on and ap­plaud, in spite of them­selves. That is ex­cit­ing. It is not up­lift­ing. But for men just like you and me to march out to face death for an idea, for hon­or, for du­ty, that very fact en­no­bles the race.”

“Ah,” said the Lawyer, “I see. The Doc­tor en­joys the dra­ma of life, but he does not en­joy the pure­ly do­mes­tic dra­ma.”

“And out of all this,” said the Trained Nurse, in her lev­el voice, “you are leav­ing the Almighty. He gave us a world full of beau­ty, full of work, full of in­ter­est, and he gave us ca­pac­ities to en­joy it, and en­dowed us with emo­tions which make it worth while to live and to die. He gave us sim­ple laws--they are clear enough--they mark sharply the line be­tween good and evil. He left us ab­so­lute­ly free to choose. And be­hold what man has made of it!”

“I de­ny the state­ment,” said the Doc­tor.

“That's easy,” laughed the Jour­nal­ist.

“I be­lieve,” said the Doc­tor, im­pa­tient­ly, “that no good comes but through evil. Read your Bible.”

“I don't want to read it with _your_ eyes,” replied the Jour­nal­ist, and marched testi­ly down the path to­ward the house.

“Well,” snapped the Doc­tor, “if I read it with _yours_, I should call on the Almighty to smite this plan­et with his fires and send us spin­ning, a flam­ing brand through space, to an­ni­hi­la­tion--the great scheme would seem to me a fail­ure--but I don't be­lieve it is.” And off he marched in the oth­er di­rec­tion.

The Lawyer shrugged his shoul­ders, and sup­pressed, as well as he could, a smile. The Young­ster, lean­ing his el­bows on his knees, re­cit­ed un­der his breath:

“And as he sat, all sud­den­ly there rolled, From where the wom­an wept up­on the sod, Sa­tan's deep voice, 'Oh Thou un­hap­py God.'”

“Ex­act­ly,” said the Lawyer.

“What's that?” asked the Vi­olin­ist.

“On­ly the last three lines of a great lit­tle po­em by a lit­tle great Irish­man named Stephens--en­ti­tled 'What Sa­tan Said.'”

“Af­ter all,” said the Lawyer, “the Doc­tor is prob­ably right. It all de­pends on one's point of view.”

“And one's tem­per­ament,” said the Vi­olin­ist.

“And one's ed­uca­tion,” said the Crit­ic.

Just here the Doc­tor came back,--and he came back his smil­ing self. He made a dash down the path to where the Jour­nal­ist was ev­ident­ly sulk­ing, went up be­hind him, threw an arm over his shoul­der, and led him back in­to the cir­cle.

“See here,” he said, “you are all my guests. I am un­rea­son­ably fond of you, even if we can't see Life from the same point of view. Man as an in­di­vid­ual, and Man as a part of the Scheme are two dif­fer­ent things. I asked you down here to en­joy your­selves, not to ar­gue. I apol­ogize--all my fault--un­par­don­able of me. Come now--we have de­cid­ed to stay as long as we can--we are all in­ter­est­ed. It is not ev­ery gen­er­ation that has the hon­or to sit by, and watch two sys­tems meet at the cross­roads and dis­pute the pas­sage to the Fu­ture. We'll agree not to dis­cuss the ethics of the mat­ter again. If the men march­ing out there to the fron­tier can agree to face the can­non--and there are as many opin­ions there as here--sure­ly we can _look on_ in si­lence.”

And on that agree­ment we all went to bed.

But on the fol­low­ing day, as we sat in the gar­den af­ter din­ner, our at­tempts to “keep off the grass” were mis­er­ably vis­ible. They cast a con­straint on the par­ty. Ev­ery top­ic seemed to lead to the for­bid­den en­clo­sure. It was at a very crit­ical mo­ment that the Sculp­tor, sit­ting cross-​legged on a bench, in a re­al Al­ma Tade­ma at­ti­tude, filled the dan­ger­ous pause with:

“It was in the days of our Lord 1348 that there hap­pened in Flo­rence, the finest city in Italy--”

And the Vi­olin­ist, who was lean­ing against a tree, touched an imag­inary man­dolin, con­clud­ing: “A most ter­ri­ble plague.”

The Crit­ic leaped to his feet.

“A cork­ing idea,” he cried.

“Mine, mine own,” replied the Sculp­tor. “I pro­pose that what those who, in the days of the ter­ri­ble plague, took refuge at the Vil­la Palmieri, did to pass away the time, we, who are watch­ing the war ap­proach--as our host says it will--do here. Let us, in­stead of dis­put­ing, each tell a sto­ry af­ter din­ner--to calm our nerves,--or oth­er­wise.”

At first ev­ery one hoot­ed.

“I could nev­er tell a sto­ry,” ob­ject­ed the Di­vorcee.

“Of course you can,” de­clared the Jour­nal­ist. “Ev­ery­body in the world has one sto­ry to tell.”

“Sure,” ex­claimed the Lawyer. “No em­bar­go on sub­jects?”

“I don't know,” smiled the Doc­tor. “There is al­ways the Young­ster.”

“You go to blazes,” was the Young­ster's re­sponse, and he added: “No war sto­ries. Draw that line.”

“Then,” laughed the Doc­tor, “let's make it tales of our own, our na­tive land.” And there the mat­ter rest­ed. On­ly, when we sep­arat­ed that night, each of us car­ried a sealed en­ve­lope con­tain­ing a num­bered slip, which de­cid­ed the ques­tion of prece­dence, and it was agreed that no one but the sto­ry-​teller should know who was to be the evening's en­ter­tain­er, un­til sto­ry-​telling hour ar­rived with the cof­fee and cigarettes.