pped his brow. "By Jove," he muttered, "if I
wasn't within an ace of clean forgetting!" The sight of the lake had
fortunately put him in mind that he was engaged to-day to lunch with
Lady Blanchemain at Roccadoro.

He found her ladyship, in a frock all concentric whirls of crisp white
ruffles, vigorously wielding a fan, and complaining of the heat.
(Indeed, as Annunziata had predicted, it had grown markedly warmer.) "I
shall fly away, if this continues; I shall fly straight to town, and set
my house in order for the season. When do _you_ come?" she asked,
smiling on him from her benign old eyes.

"I don't come," answered John. "I rather like town in autumn and winter,
when it's too dark to see its ugliness, but save me from it in the clear
light of summer."

"Fudge," said Lady Blanchemain. "London's the most beautiful capital in
Europe--it's grandiose. And it's the only place where there are any
people.

"Yes," said John, "but, as at Nice and Homburg, too many of them are
English. And there's a liberal scattering, I've heard, of Jews?"

"Oh, Jews are all right--when they aren't Jewy," said Lady Blanchemain,
with magnanimity. "I know some very nice ones. I was rather hoping you
would be a feature of my Sunday afternoons."

"I'm not a society man," said John. "I've no aptitude myself for
patronizing or toadying, and I don't particularly enjoy being patronized
or toadied to."

"Is that the beginning and end of social life in England?" Lady
Blanchemain inquired, delicately sarcastic.

"As I have seen it, yes," asseverated John. "The beginning, end, and
middle of social life in England, as in Crim-Tartary, is worship of the
longest pigtail,--a fetichism sometimes grosser, sometimes subtler,
sometimes deliberate, often unconscious and instinctive. Every one you
meet is aware that his pigtail is either longer or shorter than yours,
and accordingly, more or less subtly, grossly, unconsciously or
deliberately, swaggers or bends the knee. It's a state of things I've
tried in vain to find diverting."

"It's a state of things you'll find prevailing pretty well in all places
where the human species breeds," said Lady Blanchemain. "The only
difference will be a question of what constitutes the pigtail. And are
you, then, remaining at Sant' Alessina?"

"For the present," answered John.

"Until--?" she questioned.

"Oh, well, until she sends me away, or leaves herself," said he, "and so
my fool's paradise achieves its i