“But,” I objected, “why don’t you write? It’s the natural thing to do.”
“Write? Bah! Did you ever hear of a Provençal writing when he could talk?” He tapped his lips, and in an instant, like a whirlwind, he passed from my ken.
Aristide on his arrival at Chislehurst looked about the pleasant, leafy place—it was a bright October afternoon and the wooded hillside blazed in russet and gold—and decided it was the perfect environment for Miss Janet and Miss Anne, to say nothing of little Jean. A neat red brick house with a trim garden in front of it looked just the kind of a house wherein Miss Janet and Miss Anne would live. He rang the bell. A parlour-maid, in spotless black and white, tutelary nymph of Suburbia, the very parlour-maid who would minister to Miss Janet and Miss Anne, opened the door.
“Miss Honeywood?” he inquired.
“Not here, sir,” said the parlour-maid.
“Where is she? I mean, where are they?”
“No one of that name lives here,” said the parlour-maid.
“Who does live here?”
“Colonel Brabazon.”