There were, however, some houses which the master found to his liking; and here he lingered awhile, inspecting the rooms, taking stock of the furniture, examining the engravings and water-colours on the walls, and viewing the trim gardens with visible satisfaction.  One place, a large house in one of the precipitous roads leading from the Ridgeway to the Worple Road, was, perhaps, rather too open for his requirements, but its appointments were perfect, and at his bidding I plied the lady of the house with innumerable questions about plate, linen, and garden produce, the servants she offered to leave behind her, and so forth.  She was a tall and stately dame, with silver hair and a soft musical voice—­a perfect type of the old marquise, such as one sees portrayed at times on the boards of the Comedie Francaise, and after I had acted as interpreter for a quarter of an hour or so, she suddenly turned upon the master and, to the surprise of all of us, addressed him in perfect French.  It was this which broke the spell.  Though M. Zola was taken aback, he responded politely enough, and the conversation went on in French for some minutes, but I could already tell that he had renounced his intention of renting the house.  When we drove away, after promising the lady a decisive answer within a day or two, he said to me: 

’That would never do.  The lady’s French was too good.  She looked at me rather suspiciously too.  She would soon discover my identity.  She has probably heard of me already.’

‘Who hasn’t?’ I responded with a laugh.  And once again I brought forward the objections that occurred to me with respect to the plan of remaining at Wimbledon.  It was a centre of Roman Catholic activity.  There was a Jesuit college there, numbering both French professors and French pupils.  Moreover, several French families resided in Wimbledon, and with some of them I was myself acquainted.  Then also the population included a good many literary men, journalists, and others who took an interest in the Dreyfus case.  And, finally, the town was far too near to London to be in anywise a safe hiding-place.

Nevertheless, M. Zola only abandoned his intentions with regret.  In that bright sunshiny weather there was an attractive je ne sais quoi about Wimbledon which charmed him.  Not that it was in his estimation an ideal place.  The descents from the hill and the Ridgeway (though he admired the beautiful views they afforded, stretching as far as Norwood) appalled him from certain practical standpoints, and he was never weary of expatiating on the pluck of the girls who cycled so boldly and gracefully from the hill crest to the lower parts of the town.  Here it may be mentioned that M. Zola has become reconciled to the skirt as a cycling garment.  Once upon a time he was an uncompromising partisan of ‘rationals’ and ‘bloomers,’ a warm adherent of the views which Lady Harberton and her friends uphold.  But sojourn in England has changed all that—­at