Then
I was sent to Paris with the Commission. I have certain expert
knowledge....For some reason I didn't tell Miss Dwight....I wrote her a
hurried note saying that I was obliged to go to Paris for a few weeks.
"The night after I arrived I saw you at the Embassy. That finished it. If I
hadn't been sent back to England for some papers--twice--I'd have found you
before this."
CHAPTER XI
I
The concierge announced supper. Alexina had brought food with her and the
little meal was good if not abundant. The dining-room was very dreary,
although warmed by the petrol stove. It was a long dark room, paneled to
the ceiling, and the two candles on the table did little more to define
their lineaments to each other than the flames of briquet and match.
The concierge served and they talked of the Peace Conference and of
the general pessimism that prevailed. Same old diplomacy. Same old
diplomatists. Same old ambitions. Same old European policies. An idealist
had about as much chance with those astute conventionalized brains dyed in
the diplomatic wiles and methods of the centuries as an unarmed man on
foot with a pack of wolves....At the moment all the other Commissions were
cursing Italy....She might be the stumbling block to ultimate peace....As
for the League of Nations, as well ask for the millenium at once. Human,
nature probably inspired the creed: "As it was in the beginning, is now,
and ever shall be," etc.
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