Page:The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman.djvu/215

 house like a demented creature and vows that my boy promised to marry his Molly. Indeed I know what I am talking about. In this very room, though Arthur would not allow me to be present: it was not “a woman’s province.” Clergyman or no, the mad old father would have had short shrift from me. “Proof, my good man,” I would have said, “proof.”. . . That is how the matter stands at present, and you can realize that, while we are braced to receive the next onslaught, there can be no question of long, careless holidays.

But I was glad I went even for a short time. Even to Menton, which truly honestly is only a suburb of Monte Carlo (I had a reason), even with the railways in their present abominable condition—the French seem to be making no effort to pull themselves together after the war except by means of wholesale robbery. They have clearly decided that, as we came to their rescue and paid for their war, it is now our bounden duty to pay for them in peace as well. . . I always believe in going right away after a domestic crisis of that kind; and I was really beginning to fear a break-down if I stayed any longer in London. There is a curious convention that there is something funny about a man of Arthur’s age and position falling under the