high up in the air. I was writing at the series of articles for the
_Bi-Monthly_, for Polehampton. I was to get the atmosphere of Paris, you
remember. It was rather extraordinary, that process. Up there I seemed
to be as much isolated from Paris as if I had been in--well, in Hampton
Court. It was almost impossible to write; I had things to think about:
preoccupations, jealousies. It was true I had a living to make, but that
seemed to have lost its engrossingness as a pursuit, or at least to have
suspended it.

The panels of the room seemed to act as a sounding-board, the belly of
an immense 'cello. There were never any noises in the house, only
whispers coming from an immense distance--as when one drops stones down
an unfathomable well and hears ages afterward the faint sound of
disturbed waters. When I look back at that time I figure myself as
forever sitting with uplifted pen, waiting for a word that would not
come, and that I did not much care about getting. The panels of the room
would creak sympathetically to the opening of the entrance-door of the
house, the faintest of creaks; people would cross the immense hall to
the room in which they plotted; would cross leisurely, with laughter and
rustling of garments that after a long time reached my ears in whispers.
Then I should have an access of mad jealousy. I wanted to be part of her
life, but I could not stand that Salon of suspicious conspirators. What
could I do there? Stand and look at them, conscious that they all
dropped their voices instinctively when I came near them?

That was the general tone of that space of time, but, of course, it was
not always that. I used to emerge now and then to breakfast
sympathetically with my aunt, sometimes to sit through a meal with the
two of them. I danced attendance on them singly; paid depressing calls
with my aunt; calls on the people in the Faubourg; people without any