d upon the Index. The house in question is a vast and pompous
contiguity of stucco, in the style of 1830. It looks like a Riviera
hotel a good deal run to seed. It looks like a shabby relation of
Buckingham Palace. It looks like a barrack decorated with the
discoloured trimmings of a bride-cake."

"Ah, well, be it so," consented Susanna. "The house is ugly--but it is
comfortable. And, in any case, your conscience is too sensitive. The
ultimate responsibility for my having taken it comes home to no one,
unless--well, to be strictly just, unless to a grandfather of mine, who
has been dead these many long years."

Which pronouncement may very possibly have struck her listener as
enigmatic. But I daresay he felt that he scarcely knew her well enough
to press for an elucidation. And, anyhow, without pause, she went on--

"Besides, everything else--the park, the country--is beyond words
beautiful."

"Yes," acquiesced Anthony, "the country is beautiful, at this season.
That's why everyone abandons it, and scuttles up to town."

Susanna's face lighted, with interest.

"Indeed? Is _that_ the reason? I had observed the fact, but I was at
a loss to think what the reason for it could be."

"No," said Anthony, eating his words, "that is not the reason. It were
base to deceive you. A normally-constituted Englishman no more objects
to beauty, than a deep-sea fish objects to dry weather or the
income-tax. He abandons the country during the three pleasantest
months of the year, not because it is beautiful, for he is sublimely
unconscious that it's beautiful, but because, during those months, in
the country, there's nothing that he can course, hunt, or shoot."

Susanna pondered.

"I see," she said. "And is--is there anything that he can course,
hunt, or shoot in town?"

"Not exactly," Anthony admitted. "But there are people--to whom he can
do the next best thing. There are people whom he can bore. It is an
interim sport. It is an annual national tournament. The good knights
flock together from the four corners of England, to tilt at one
another, and try who shall approve himself the most indefatigable, the
most indomitable bore."

Susanna gazed dreamily at the distance for a moment. Then, with sudden
actuality, "Apropos of interim sports," she demanded, "what are you
going to do about that cat of yours?" A movement of her head indicated
Patapouf.

Hovering near them, Patapouf was busy with a game of