her—she is so slight—(a mass of bones probably in evening dress—but thank goodness I shall not see her in evening dress,) she goes at six—She is to have her lunch here—Burton has arranged it. An hour off for lunch which she can have on a tray in the small salon, which I have had arranged for her work room.—Of course it won't take her an hour to eat—but Burton says she must have that time, it is always done.45 It is a great nuisance for perhaps when 12:30 comes I shall just be in the middle of an inspiration and I suppose off she'll fly like the housemaids used when the servants' hall bell went at home. But I can't say anything.

45

I was full of ideas and the beginning of my first chapter spouted out, and when Miss Sharp had read it over to me I found she had not made any mistake. That is a mercy.

She went away and typed it, and then had her lunch—and I had mine, but Maurice dropped in and mine took longer than hers—it was half past two when I rang my hand bell for her (it is a jolly little silver one I bought once in Cairo) She answered it promptly—the script in her hand.

"I have had half an hour with nothing to do," she said—"Can you not give me some other work which I can turn to, if this should happen again?"

"You can read a book—there are lots in the book case" I told her—"Or I might leave you some letters to answer."

"Thank you, that would be best"—(She is conscientious evidently).

We began again.

She sits at a table with her notebook, and while I pause she is absolutely still—that is good. I feel she won't count more than a table or chair. I am quite pleased with my work. It is awfully hot to-day and there is some tension in the air—as though something46 was going to happen. The news is the same—perhaps slightly better.—I am going to have a small dinner to-night. The widow and Maurice and Madame de Clerté—just four and we are going to the play. It is such a business for me to go I seldom turn out.—Maurice is having a little supper in his rooms at the Ritz for us. It is my birthday—I am thirty-one years old.

46

Friday—What an evening that 26th of June! The theatre was hot and the cramped position worried me so—and the lights made my eye ache—Madame de Clerté and I left before the end and ambled back to the Ritz in my one horse Victoria and went and sat in Maurice's room. We talked of the situation, and the effect of the Americans coming in, 

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