And off went this amazing housekeeper of mine dancing lightly away across the grass with the buckles on her little peasant slippers twinkling and every blue ribbon a-flutter.
I turned and looked at Raoul. He returned my gaze with an odd smile.
"Of what," said I, "are you thinking?"
"I was thinking," he replied seriously, "that the world is a very droll place,—agreeable for the gay, but hell for those born without a sense of humor."
VI
MASTER AND MAID
I had become tired of following Smith about and of trying to keep an eye on Clelia. The little minx was so demure that it seemed difficult to believe she deliberately offered Smith opportunities for philandering. Otherwise my household caused me no anxiety; everything went smoothly. Thusis waited on table and ran the place, Josephine Vannis cooked to perfection, Raoul had started a garden and the bottling works; and no tourists had bothered us by interrupting the régime and demanding food and shelter.
Outwardly ours was a serene and emotionless life, undisturbed by that bloody frenzy which agitated the greater surface of the globe.
Here in the sunny silence of our little valley ringed by snow peaks, the soft thunder of some far avalanche or the distant tinkle of cow-bells were the loudest interruptions that startled us from the peaceful inertia consequent upon good food and idle hours.
Outwardly as I say, calm brooded all about us. True the Zurich and Berne newspapers stirred me up, and the weekly packages of New York papers which Smith and I received caused a tense silence in our rooms whither we always retired to read them.