ht-fifteen up to-morrow morning.
That will get us to Victoria in time for the eleven o'clock Continental
express."

"Oh? We 're going abroad?" asked Adrian.

"I suppose so. Where else is there to go?" said Anthony.

"I could have told you beforehand," Adrian consoled him, "that you had
n't the ghost of a chance with her. You grim, glum, laconic sort of
men are n't at all the sort that would appeal to a rich, poetic,
southern nature like Madame Torrebianca's. She would be attracted by
an exuberant, expansive, warm, sunny sort of man,--a man genial and
fruity, like old wine,--sweet and tender and mellow, like ripe peaches.
If it were n't that I sternly discountenance the imperilling of
business interests by mixing them up with personal sentiment, I should
very probably have paid court to her myself. And now I expect you have
lost me a tenant. I expect she 'll not care to renew the lease."

"Don't know, I 'm sure," said Anthony. "You might ask her. We 're
dining with her to-night. That would make a graceful dinner-table
topic."

Adrian's blue eyes grew round.

"We 're dining with her to-night?"

That did n't at all fit his theory of the case.

"At least I am," affirmed Anthony, dropping the end of his cigarette
into an ash-tray. "And she said I might bring you, if you 'd promise
to be good."

"_The--deuce_!" ejaculated Adrian, in something between a whisper and a
whistle. "But--then--why--what--what under the sun are you going
abroad for?"

"A mere whim--a sheer piece of perversity--a sleeveless errand,"
Anthony answered. "So now we might set about sweeping and garnishing
ourselves," he suggested, moving towards the door.

Susanna was very beautiful, I think, in a rose-coloured dinner-gown
(rose-coloured chiffon, with accessories of drooping old pale-yellowish
lace), a spray of scarlet geranium in her hair, pearls round her
throat, and, as you could now and then perceive, high-heeled scarlet
slippers on her feet.

She was very beautiful, very pleasant and friendly; and if she seemed,
perhaps, a thought less merry, a thought more pensive, than her
wont--if sometimes, for a second or two, she seemed to lose herself,
while her eyes gazed far away, and her lips remained slightly parted--I
doubt if Anthony liked her any the less for this.

But what he pined for was a minute alone with her; and that appeared to
be by no means forthcoming. After dinner they all went out upon the
terrace, where it wa