capital to find you there."

"I think it ought to make you feel," she said after a moment, "that I
_am_ easy to treat."

But he shook his head again; he wouldn't have it. "You've not come to
that _yet_."

"One has to be so bad for it?"

"Well, I don't think I've ever come to it--to 'ease' of treatment. I
doubt if it's possible. I've not, if it is, found any one bad enough.
The ease, you see, is for _you_."

"I see--I see."

They had an odd friendly, but perhaps the least bit awkward pause on
it; after which Sir Luke asked: "And that clever lady--she goes with
you?"

"Mrs. Stringham? Oh dear, yes. She'll stay with me, I hope, to the end."

He had a cheerful blankness. "To the end of what?"

"Well--of everything."

"Ah then," he laughed, "you're in luck. The end of everything is far
off. This, you know, I'm hoping," said Sir Luke, "is only the
beginning." And the next question he risked might have been a part of
his hope. "Just you and she together?"

"No, two other friends; two ladies of whom we've seen more here than of
any one and who are just the right people for us."

He thought a moment. "You'll be four women together then?"

"Ah," said Milly, "we're widows and orphans. But I think," she added as
if to say what she saw would reassure him, "that we shall not be
unattractive, as we move, to gentlemen. When you talk of 'life' I
suppose you mean mainly gentlemen."

"When I talk of 'life,'" he made answer after a moment during which he
might have been appreciating her raciness--"when I talk of life I think
I mean more than anything else the beautiful show of it, in its
freshness, made by young persons of your age. So go on as you are. I
see more and more _how_ you are. You can't," he went so far as to say
for pleasantness, "better it."

She took it from him with a great show of peace. "One of our companions
will be Miss Croy, who came with me here first. It's in _her_ that life
is splendid; and a part of that is even that she's devoted to me. But
she's above all magnificent in herself. So that if you'd like," she
freely threw out, "to see _her_--"

"Oh I shall like to see any one who's devoted to you, for clearly it
will be jolly to be 'in' it. So that if she's to be at Venice I _shall_
see her?"

"We must arrange it--I shan't fail. She moreover has a friend who may
also be there"--Milly found herself going on to this. "He's likely to
come, I believe, for he always follows her."

Sir Luke wonde