uted my inquiries in one direction only. It
may interest you to know that I have come to the conclusion that Mr.
Weatherley's disappearance is not connected in any way with the
matters of which we spoke this morning."

"Then it remains the more mysterious," declared Arnold.

"Fenella, at any rate, is not disposed to wear widow's weeds,"
remarked Lady Blennington. "Cheer up, dear, he'll come back all
right. Husbands always do. It is our other intimate friends who
desert us."

Fenella laughed.

"I am quite sure that you are right," she admitted. "I am not really
worried at all. It is a very annoying manner, however, in which to
go away, this,--a desertion most unceremonious. And now Andrea here
tells me that at any moment he may leave me, too."

They all looked at him. He inclined his head gravely.

"Nothing is decided," he said. "I have friends abroad who generally
let me know when things are stirring. There is a little cloud--it
may blow over or it may be the presage of a storm. In a day or two
we shall know."

"You men are to be envied," Lady Blennington sighed, speaking for a
moment more seriously. "You have the power always to roam. You
follow the music of the world wherever you will. The drum beats, you
pull up your stakes, and away you go. But for us poor women, alas!
there is never any pulling up of the stakes. We, too, hear the
music--perhaps we hear it oftener than you--but we may not follow."

"You have compensations," Sabatini remarked.

"We have compensations, of course," Lady Blennington admitted, "but
what do they amount to, after all?"

"You have also a different set of instincts," Signor di Marito
interposed. "There are other things in the life of a woman than to
listen always to the wander-music."

"The question is as old as the hills," Fenella declared, "and it
bores me. I want some more omelette. Really, Andrea, your chef is a
treasure. If you get your summons, I think that I shall take him
over. Who will come to the theatre with me to-night? I have two
stalls for the _Gaiety_."

"I can't," Lady Blennington remarked. "I am going to a foolish
dinner-party, besides which, of course, you don't want to be
bothered with a woman."

"Nor can I," Sabatini echoed. "I have appointments all the evening."

"I, alas!" Signor di Marito sighed, "must not leave my post for one
single moment. These are no days for theatre-going for my poor
countrymen."

"Then the duty seems to devolve upon you," Fe