had brought around the season at which Mrs. Melrose's
house might be convenient: no visitors were to be feared at Versailles
at the end of August, and though Susy's reasons for seeking solitude
were so remote from those she had once prefigured, they were none the
less cogent. To be alone--alone! After those first exposed days when,
in the persistent presence of Fred Gillow and his satellites, and in the
mocking radiance of late summer on the lagoons, she had fumed and turned
about in her agony like a trapped animal in a cramping cage, to be alone
had seemed the only respite, the one craving: to be alone somewhere in a
setting as unlike as possible to the sensual splendours of Venice, under
skies as unlike its azure roof. If she could have chosen she would have
crawled away into a dingy inn in a rainy northern town, where she had
never been and no one knew her. Failing that unobtainable luxury, here
she was on the threshold of an empty house, in a deserted place, under
lowering skies. She had shaken off Fred Gillow, sulkily departing for
his moor (where she had half-promised to join him in September); the
Prince, young Breckenridge, and the few remaining survivors of the
Venetian group, had dispersed in the direction of the Engadine or
Biarritz; and now she could at least collect her wits, take stock of
herself, and prepare the countenance with which she was to face the next
stage in her career. Thank God it was raining at Versailles!

The door opened, she heard voices in the drawing-room, and a slender
languishing figure appeared on the threshold.

"Darling!" Violet Melrose cried in an embrace, drawing her into the
dusky perfumed room.

"But I thought you were in China!" Susy stammered.

"In China... in China," Mrs. Melrose stared with dreamy eyes, and Susy
remembered her drifting disorganised life, a life more planless, more
inexplicable than that of any of the other ephemeral beings blown about
upon the same winds of pleasure.

"Well, Madam, I thought so myself till I got a wire from Mrs. Melrose
last evening," remarked the perfect house-keeper, following with Susy's
handbag.

Mrs. Melrose clutched her cavernous temples in her attenuated hands. "Of
course, of course! I had meant to go to China--no, India.... But I've
discovered a genius... and Genius, you know...." Unable to complete
her thought, she sank down upon a pillowy divan, stretched out an arm,
cried: "Fulmer! Fulmer!" and, while Susy Lansing stood in