_Awaiting the pleasure of your instructions,_

_We beg to remain, dear sir, Your obedient servants,_ ----------

It was perhaps five hours later that my memory again responded, and I turned to Adele.

"The dam burst," said I, "at the very moment when you were going to tell me what you had been about to say when the first tire went outside Bidache. Sounds like 'The House that Jack built,' doesn't it?"

"Oh, I know," said Adele, laughing. "But it's no good now. I was going to say----"

The door opened, and Falcon came in with a wire.

I picked up the form and weighed it thoughtfully.

"Wonderfully quick," I said. "It was half-past two when I was at the Bank, and I couldn't have been at the Post Office before a quarter to three. I looked at my watch. Just under four hours."

"The Bank?" said Adele, staring. "But you said you were going to the Club."

I nodded.

"I know. I was anxious to raise no false hopes. All the same, I couldn't help feeling that half a million francs were worth a tenpenny wire. Therefore I telegraphed to Jonah. His answer will show whether that tenpenny wire was worth half a million francs."

My wife s.n.a.t.c.hed the form from my hand and tore it open.

It was very short.

_Bonds repurchased Jonah._

But my memory never recovered from the two-fold slight.

To this day I cannot remember to ask Adele what it was that she had been about to say when the first tire burst outside Bidache.

CHAPTER X

HOW BERRY SOUGHT COMFORT IN VAIN, AND n.o.bBY SLEPT UPON A QUEEN'S BED.

Time was getting on.

The season at Pau was approaching the end of its course. Already villas and flats and servants were being engaged for the winter to come. We had been asked definitely whether we proposed to return and, if so, whether we wished again to occupy the excellent villa we had.

Not knowing what answer to make to the first question, we had pa.s.sed to the second--somewhat illogically. The second had proved more heatedly disputable than the first. Finally Jill had looked up from a letter to Piers and put in her oar with a splash.

"The villa's all right," she announced. "Everyone says it's the best, and so should we, if we didn't live in it. It's what's inside that's so awful. Even one decent sofa would make all the difference."

In silence we pondered her words.

At length--

"I confess," said Berry, "that the idea of having a few chairs about in which you can sit continuously for ten minutes, not so much in comfort as without fear of contracting a bed-sore or necrosis of the coccyx, appeals to me. Compared with most of the 'sitzplatz' in this here villa, an ordinary church pew is almost voluptuous. The beastly things seem designed to promote myalgia."

"Yet they do know," said I. "The French, I mean. Look at their beds."

"Exactly," replied my brother-in-law. "That's the maddening part of it. Every French bed is an idyll--a poem of repose. The upholsterer puts his soul into its creation. A born genius, he expresses himself in beds. The rest of the junk he turns out..." He broke off and glanced about the room. His eye lighted upon a couch, lozenge-shaped, hog-backed, featuring the Greek-Key pattern in brown upon a brick-red ground and surrounded on three sides by a white bal.u.s.trade some three inches high. "Just consider that throne. Does it or does it not suggest collusion between a private-school workshop, a bricklayer's labourer, and the Berlin branch of the Y.W.C.A.?"

"If," said Daphne, "it was only the chairs, I wouldn't mind. But it's everything. The sideboard, for instance----"

"Ah," said her husband, "my favourite piece. The idea of a double cabin-washstand is very beautifully carried out. I'm always expecting Falcon to press something and a couple of basins to appear. Then we can wash directly after the asparagus."

"The truth is," said Adele, "these villas are furnished to be let. And when you've said that, you've said everything."

"I agree," said I. "And if we liked Pau enough to come back next autumn, the best thing to do is to have a villa of our own. I'm quite ready to face another three winters here, and, if everyone else is, it 'ld be worth while. As for furniture, we can easily pick out enough from Cholmondely Street and White Ladies."

There was a moment's silence.

Then--

"I'm on," said Jonah, who had caught three splendid salmon in the last two days. "This place suits me."

"And me," said Adele warmly.

My sister turned to her husband.

"What d'you think, old chap?"

Berry smiled beatifically. A far-away look came into his eyes.

"I shall personally superintend," he announced, "the removal and destruction of the geyser."

Amid some excitement the matter was then and there decided.

The more we thought upon it, the sounder seemed the idea. The place suited us all. To have our things about us would be wholly delightful.

Provided we meant for the future to winter abroad, we should save money.

Pleasedly we proceeded to lunch.

Throughout the meal we discussed what manner of house ours must be, situation, dimensions, aspect. We argued amiably about its garden and curtilage. We determined to insist upon two bathrooms. By the time the cheese was served, we had selected most of the furniture and were bickering good-temperedly about the style of the wall-papers.

Then we rang up a house-agent, to learn that he had no unfurnished villa "to let" upon his books. He added gratuitously that, except for a ruined chateau upon the other side of Tarbes, he had nothing "for sale" either.

So soon as we had recovered, we returned to the charge...

The third agent we addressed was not quite certain. There was, he said, a house in the town--_tres solids, tres serieuse, dans un quartier chic_. It would, he thought, be to our liking. It had, for instance, _une salle de fete superbe_. He was not sure, however, that it was still available. A French gentleman was much attracted, and had visited it three times.

We were greatly disgusted and said so. We did not want a house in the town. We wanted....