That is a characteristic, not
a quality. One is afraid or one is not. It happens that I am not.
Still, I am Very prudent. You would laugh if you could see me "shutting
up" for the night. All my windows on the ground floor are heavily
barred. Such of the doors as have glass in them have shutters also.
The window shutters are primitive affairs of solid wood, with
diamond-shaped holes in the upper part. First, I put up the shutters on
the door in the dining-room which leads into the garden on the south
side; then I lock the door. Then I do a similar service for the kitchen
door on to the front terrace, and that into the orchard, and lock both
doors. Then I go out the salon door and lock the stable and the grange
and take out the keys. Then I come into the salon and lock the door
after me, and push two of the biggest bolts you ever saw.
After which I hang up the keys, which are as big as the historic key of
the Bastille, which you may remember to have seen at the Musee
Carnavalet. Then I close and bolt all the shutters downstairs. I do it
systematically every night--because I promised not to be foolhardy. I
always grin, and feel as if it were a scene in a play.
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