Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill THE WAY OF DIANE IN August there was no place in Freyr so cool as the terrace of the Hotel d'ltalie et d'An- gleterre. Only when the breeze lifted the leaves of its closely woven roof of vines could a few flecks of sunshine find their way to the gravel below. At the dinner hour the tables in the arbors next the railing along the river wall were always in demand, for there one could see the lights on the bridge dancing in the water-mirror and the fainter reflections from the windows of the chateau in the background. Even at midday, when the morning breeze had died away and the river had settled into sleep, one often had to wait for some old habitue lingering persistently over his coffee and cognac. Something in the lapping of the little waves against the foot of the wall and the shimmer under the willows that fringed the meadows rendered the busiest indifferent to the flight of time. Under such circumstances it was no wonder that M. Achille, the proprietor, pictured to himself with satisfaction the deserted tables of the Cafe de la Regence in the hot, dusty square. In winter, however, the Hotel d'ltalie et d'An- gleterre retreated into itself like a snail, and the Cafe de la Regence had its revenge. On this particular morning the garden was almost deserted. In one of the arbors an officer and his wife were finishing their early breakfast. Beyond, quite hidden by the screen of leaves, a priest was sitting, sipping a glass of sugared water. It was the hour when M. Achille made his rounds inspecting the arrangement of the tables, moving here a napkin, there a menu, on the white cloths, making sure, like a good general, that all was ready for the assault of noon. Only in this quiet morning hour did the Abbe d'Arlot permit himself the luxury of the terrace at the p...