Chapter I: Preface

A novel about Paris that is not about the war requires even now, I am told, some word of explanation. Mine is brief:

This story was conceived before the war began. I came to the task of putting it into its final shape after nine months passed between the Western Front and a Paris war-torn and war-darkened, both physically and spiritually. Yet, though I had found the old familiar places, and the ever young and ever familiar people, wounded and sad, I did not long have to seek for the Parisian bravery in pain and the Parisian smile shining, rainbowlike, through the tears. Nothing can conquer France and nothing can lastingly hurt Paris. They are, as a famous wit said of our own so different Boston, a state of mind. Had the German succeeded in the Autumn of 1914 or the Spring of 1918, France would have remained, and Paris. What used to happen in the Land of Love and the City of Lights will happen there again and be always happening, so that my story is at once a retrospect and a prophecy.

Realizing these things, I have found it a pleasure to make this book. A book without problems and without horrors, its sole purpose is to give to the reader some of that pleasure which went to its making. Wars come and go; but for every man the Door Opposite stands open beside the Seine, the hurdy-gurdy plays "Annie Laurie" in the Street of the Valley of Grace and--a Lady of the Rose is waiting.

R. W. K.
_Columbia, Penna._,
Christmas Day, 1918.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. In Which, if not Love, at Least Anger, Laughs
at Locksmiths 13

II. Providing the Gentle Reader with a Card of
Admission to the Nest of the Two Doves 36

III. In Which a Fool and His Money Are Soon Parted 49

IV. A Damsel in Distress 64

V. Which Tells How Cartaret Returned to the Rue du
Val-de-Grace, and What He Found There 84

VI. Cartaret Sets Up Housekeeping 102

VII. Of Domestic Economy, of Day-Dreams, and of a Far
Country and Its Sovereign Lady 118

VIII. Chiefly Concerning Strawberries 144

IX. Being the True Report of a Chaperoned Dejeuner 154

X. An Account of an Empty Purse and a Full Heart,
in the Course of Which the Author Barely Escapes
Telling a Very Old Story 169

XI. Tells How Cartaret's Fortune Turned Twice in a
Few Hours and How He Found One Thing and Lost
Another 192

XII. Narrating How Cartaret Began His Quest of the
Rose 206

XIII. Further Adventures of an Amateur Botanist 222

XIV. Something or Other About Traditions 253

XV. In Which Cartaret Takes Part in the Revival of
an Ancient Custom 273

XVI. And Last 300

OUT OF ASHES

Paris as I knew her
In the days ere this--
Paris, when I threw her
Many a careless kiss--
Paris of my pleasure,
Bright of eye and brow,
Town of squandered treasure--
Where's that Paris now?

Song had shunned her traces,
Care was on her track:
All my young girls' faces
Pale in folds of black!
Half the hearts were broken,
All the mirth was fled;
Scarce a vow was spoken,
Save above the dead....

Oh, but there's a spirit
Sorrow cannot kill!
Even now I hear it
Swear the great "I Will!"
Paris, at your portal
Taps the ancient truth,
Laughing and immortal:
Never-conquered Youth!
R. W. K.

THE AZURE ROSE