" Lady Blennington exclaimed.
"You don't deserve to have admirers, Fenella. You always treat them
badly. How is it you've never been to see me, Mr. Chetwode?"

"Not because I have forgotten your kind invitation," Arnold replied,
taking the chair by Fenella's side which the butler was holding for
him. "Unfortunately, I am at work nearly every afternoon."

"Mr. Chetwode is my husband's secretary now, you must remember,"
Fenella remarked, "and during his absence he naturally finds a great
deal to do."

"Well, I am sure I am only too glad," Lady Blennington said, "to
hear of a young man who does any work at all, nowadays. They mostly
seem to do nothing but hang about looking for a job. When you told
me," she continued, "that you were really in the city, I wasn't at
all sure that you were in earnest."

Sabatini sighed.

"I can assure you, Lady Blennington," he declared, "that so far as
my sex is represented here to-day, we are very strenuous people
indeed. Signor di Marito here carries upon his shoulders a burden,
just at the present moment, which few of the ambassadors would care
to have to deal with. Mr. Chetwode I have visited in his office, and
I can assure you that so far as his industry is concerned there is
no manner of doubt. As for myself--"

Lady Blennington interrupted gayly.

"Come," she said, "I believe it of these two others, if you insist,
but you are not going to ask us to believe that you, the
personification of idleness, are also among the toilers!"

Sabatini looked at her reproachfully.

"One is always misunderstood," he murmured. "This morning, as a
matter of fact, I have been occupied since daybreak."

"Let us hear all about it," Lady Blennington demanded.

"My energies have been directed into two channels," Sabatini
announced. "I have been making preparations for a possible journey,
and I have been trying to find a missing man."

Arnold looked up quickly. Fenella paused with her glass raised to
her lips.

"Who is the missing man?" Lady Blennington asked.

"Mr. Weatherley," Sabatini replied. "We can scarcely call him that,
perhaps, but he has certainly gone off on a little expedition
without leaving his address."

"Well, you amaze me!" Lady Blennington exclaimed. "I never thought
that he was that sort of a husband."

"Did you make any discoveries?" asked Arnold.

Sabatini shook his head.

"None," he confessed. "As an investigator I was a failure. However,
I must say that I prosec