It is the glorious summer of 1911, when there was little rain between the beginning of June and the end of September. Nevertheless, if you should weary of the heat or if there should be a sudden shower you have a long cool arcade of tempting shops, a Grand Guignol, and the necessary retreats—on a large scale—for those who are summarily affected by the cathartic action of the waters, especially that very potent Source Salée, which is never mentioned without respect, except where it is the foundation of Rabelaisian stories. The medicinal springs are housed in temples of great architectural beauty. The town of pleasure, with its eight or nine hotels, rises in terraces that survey the park—not long ago a forest in which wolves roamed in winter time. New Villette contains a theatre, a Club des Étrangers with gambling rooms, a Salle de lecture, a Concert Hall, an Église Anglicane, and a Catholic church, a post-office, doctors' houses and laboratories, and the necessary usines and garages. A mile away is the real Villette, a common-place Lorraine town of purely agricultural interests, turning its back, so to speak, on the adjoining health resort which has made its name famous.
In the arcade is a large black notice-board, whereon besides local notices are pinned the Havas telegrams. Hither, during one critical week, comes a throng of anxious readers. Is it to be peace or War? Will Germany be satisfied with French Congo and give up Morocco? Should we pack to-night and leave before Mother has completed her cure, in case mobilization upsets the trains? Will my husband be called up? What will happen to my boy?
Sibyl, lying on her comfortably-sloped invalid chair in the verandah of the Pavilion des Déjeuners, opines the Germans must be perfect beasts to upset every one like this, and all over some place on the Sahara coast where there are just a few verminous Moors. She is not in favour of anarchism, but she really does wish some one would assassinate the Kaiser....
Roger looks grave and essays the hopeless task of defending Germany. "It is all this mania for 'Empires across the Seas.' Germany gets mad when our Empire, the French Empire, the Russian Empire each year get bigger, while she is prevented everywhere from expanding——, etc., etc."
Victoria Masham hazards the conjecture: "If only the dear Queen were alive! She would soon...."
Sibyl interrupts: "My dear Vicky, you must look facts in the face. Queen Victoria would now be 92. She would not be of much use at that age ... See! There is obviously our Foreign Minister ... disguised with smoked glasses, but you can't mistake his nose. I think he's so good-looking.... And there is young Hawk of the F.O. He's just been sent to Brussels. I hear the Villierses are expected to-morrow. That man in the straw hat and the cricketing flannels is Monsieur Viviani, and the handsome old lion with the grey mane is Léon Bourgeois. The tight-trousered man you'd take for a 'booky' is Count Palastro—and there's no mistaking that stuffed figure of the last century, in a stove-pipe hat, a buttoned-up frock-coat, and pointed whiskers: that's Polánoff of the Russian Foreign Office. We saw him when we were in Japan.... 'Whithersoever the carcass is, there are the eagles gathered together.'"
Roger: "I suppose the carcass is the unhappy peoples of Europe?"
Sibyl: "I suppose so. Vicky, dear. Go and have breakfast at the hotel this morning. D'you mind? Maud has taken off the two girls to some violent sports' competition, and Clithy has motored over to Domrémy." (To Roger): "He is studying local colour for the libretto of an opera on Joan of Arc. His great clou—if he can only bring it off—is the last scene. Joan of Arc, while bound to the stake and encircled with flames, sings a scena of the fireworks kind. Clithy says it would be natural under the circumstances. He thinks if they can devise some kind of asbestos shift for the prima donna and the usual chemical flames that don't burn much it could be arranged...." (To Vicky): "I want Roger all to myself this morning. We are going to have our breakfast together, here, in case events call him to sterner duties...." (Vicky acquiesces with a good grace—in her new transformation to which a little more grey has been added, she looks surprisingly well, and younger than Sibyl, though she is ten years older).
A pause. The waiter lays the table between them for Roger's déjeuner à la fourchette. He is accustomed to preparing Sibyl's special dietary and arranges for that also. He is a pleasant-faced man, deeply deploring "le peu de progrès que fait M'ame la Baronne...."
Sibyl: "What a scene for a dying woman to be looking at!"