The high life

Tuesday, January 10th., Yacht Amaryllis, Monte Carlo.

After fiddling about fruitlessly in search of little bits of mechanics, I wrote the whole scene in the afternoon yesterday, about 1,400 words, in spite of a headache due to too much exercise in the morning. We dined at Ciro's and the Grand Duchesse was there again. I was much relieved to see the maid, dressed in black, and sad to match, dance twice. She is a nice looking mournful girl of about 30. I was tempted to ask her for a dance myself. Perhaps I could cheer her up. The Grand Duchesse herself is about 60, tall, slim, straight, but damnably ugly, dresses in white and is a good dancer. She dances with a lot of young men. Seems to be enjoying herself. I was told that on Sunday night the Grand Duchesse stood half-bottles of champagne to the professional danseuses. The resort is run on exactly the right lines. There is freedom combined with tenue, and the manners of the danseuses are perfect of their kind.

Baroness Orczy

1,500 words today. I called on Baroness Orczy in the Villa Bijou, Avenue de la Costa, according to promise, and found a place stuffed with furniture and her husband's pictures. During the War, she formed the Women of England's Active Service League which had as its intention that women would contribute to the war effort by pressing men to enlist. There are probably men dead now who were not suited to war and would be alive today but for the pressure from militant women. But all of them at the villa were very decent agreeable people. I stopped an hour. Nothing notable in the talk.

Still no luck with engineers. The new one from England was returned as hopelessly incompetent today. He was seasick in harbour and knew nothing of the engines or the dynamo. Not sure how he comes to call himself an engineer! Anyway he was put ashore on Monday night. Although ill up to the time of going there, as soon as he knew that he was to sleep ashore he bucked up, shaved, and made himself spruce. He did not turn up to report this morning and the skipper went to fetch him. Said the skipper afterwards: "There he was having his lunch, among ladies with furs, and him with a knife and fork and a serviette. I soon pulled him out of that". It was the serviette that upset the skipper.