His whole world was not really as wide as Gregory's island was to its
gentle hermit. No butterfly raptures for him; he devoured the one kind of
facts he cared for, as a caterpillar devours leaves.



V


How Mrs. Fontenette got Mrs. "Thorndyke-Smith" and me entangled with some
six or eight others in her project for a botanizing and butterfly-chasing
picnic I do not know; but she did. On the evening before the appointed day
I perfidiously crawfished out of it, and our house furnished only one
delegate, whom I urged to go rather than break up the party--I never break
up a party if I can avoid it. "But as for me going," I said, "my business
simply won't let me!" At which our pretty neighbor expressed her regrets
with a ready resignation that broke into open sunshine as she lamented the
same inability in her husband. To my suggestion that the Baroness be
invited, Mrs. Fontenette smiled a sweet amusement that was perfect in its
way, and said she hoped the weather would be propitious; people were so
timid about rain.

It was. When I came home, tardily, that afternoon, the picnickers had not
returned, though the oleanders and crape-myrtles on the grounds next ours
cast shadows three times their length across our lawn. In an aimless way I
roamed from the house down into our small rear garden, thinking oftenest,
of course, of the absentees, and admiring the refined good sense with
which Monsieur Fontenette seemed to have decided to let this unperilous
attack of silliness run itself out in the woman he loved with so much
tenderness and with so much passion.