FICTION.
TDB charming dedicatory note to Camilla goes a long way towards disarming any criticism based on the high standards of Miss Robins's own previous achievement. The novel was written in London during the most " hectic " time on the Home Front, the time of maroons and bombe and bugle-calla, "to turn the thoughts of the writer from intolerable reality by the aid of fiction." So, Miss Robins continues, " let me confess that even if this book shall cheer nor divertno other mind, thanks • Edavation end &dal Movements, 170041360. By A. B. Dobbs. London LOOIMINIB sad co. (10e. ad. net • Comilla. By Elisabeth Robins. Loudon Hoddor stouottea. "Mao C.] to you it helped me—dare I say it helped us ?—to a kind of air-raid shelter for the mind ? " The story has nothing to do with war, but is concerned with things that will still be of moment when wars are done ; it is inscribed to a friend " who stands for that steadfastness for which, long years, I have loved your people" ; and in its portraiture it furnishes further generous proof of that appreciation, combined with a critical detach- ment, which enables us to see ourselves as others see us. For while there is nothing in the book whirls does not help to rivet the bonds of Angle American rapprochement, it is not devoid of a certain gentle satire of the " decalogue of Mode" as it obtains in England. Miss Robins is not concerned to defend the freedom of divorce as practised in the United States ; but she shows that it does not lie in the mouths of those who base their conduct on the maxim " Thou shalt not be found out " to criticize the marriage laws of America as " the millionaire's merry- go-round." There are, however, two obvious criticisms of the book : the frigidity of the central character and the method of construction. The first half of the story describes Camilla's sojourn on the Continent and in England at the age of twenty- eight. Not until p. 184 do we begin the record of her girlhood, early marriage, estrangement from her husband, and divorce. In the first part we learn that she is not a widow ; that she is handsome, rich, fastidious ; and that, while consenting to the announcement of her engagement to the ardent yet chivalrous Michael Nancarrow in the Morning Post, she demands a mora- torium before marriage, much against Michael's will, and returns to America to think things over. Meanwhile her husband has married and separated from the siren who wrecked their happi- ness ; they meet again, and his charm, coupled with the appeal of his father, so works upon a nature in which there is a good deal of the old Puritan sense of domestic duty and Renun- ciation that she is on the point of going back to him when,in a moment of expansion, at the eleventh hour and the fifty-ninth minute, Leroy Treuholme ruins his chances by the cynical avowal that "women as companions are a failure," that the other woman is sure to come back, but that he might need Camilla more. Fortunately Michael Nancarrow had crossed the Atlantic, was in no hurry to go back, and, we gather, was rewarded for his patience. These bald outlines of the story give no impression of the vivacity of the dialogue, the minute- ness of the personal touches, the vivid pictures of life in Florida and in an English country house. The Nancarrow tradition, as interpreted by Miss Robins, reminds us a; times of Mrs. Humghry Ward, and again of Mr. Galsworthy. It is, in fine, a brilliant, feverish book, though the heroine is " more than usual calm." When the attractive but unprincipled Lady St. Amant said to Camilla that she was sorry for her brother Michael because he was "a human being and he'll be tied to a fish," she was angry, but she had considerable provocation.
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