3 MARCH 1923, Page 20

Princess Bibesco's new book of short stories is not par-

ticularly distinguished. There is an effect of effort and of affectation. The dedications, single studies, or stories, each to a separate person—M. Marcel Proust. Mr. Harold Child. Mr. Gerald Gould and so on—strike a note of heaviness and pretentiousness. Considered as light reading—magazine stories for the comparatively sophisticated and fastidious— they are not bad, but judge them by any other standard and they seem tawdry.