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The very stones suggested peace. A mellow and
aristocratic flavour clung to those pink dwellings that nestled,
world--forgotten, in a green content. . . .
One of those few modern houses was the Villa Mon Repos. There was a
curious history attached to the place. It had been built about a
century ago at the orders of an eccentric French lady, a lyric poetess,
who professed to be tired of life. She had heard that somewhere on
Nepenthe was a towering precipice, unique of its kind and convenient
for suicidal purposes. She thought she would like to live near that
precipice--it might come in handy. There was nothing of the right sort
in Paris, she declared; only five-storey hotels and suchlike; the
notion of casting herself down from one of those artificial eminences
did not appeal to her high-strung temperament; she craved to die like
Sappho, her ideal. An architect was despatched, the ground purchased,
the house built and furnished. That done, she settled up her affairs in
France and established herself at Mon Repos.


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