motionless profile, and resumed with a slight sigh: "Well, all I can say
is, I wish she'd give ME some of her discarded opportunities. I wish we
could change places now, for instance. She could make a very good thing
out of the Brys if she managed them properly, and I should know just how
to look after George Dorset while Bertha is reading Verlaine with Neddy
Silverton."

She met Selden's sound of protest with a sharp derisive glance. "Well,
what's the use of mincing matters? We all know that's what Bertha brought
her abroad for. When Bertha wants to have a good time she has to provide
occupation for George. At first I thought Lily was going to play her
cards well THIS time, but there are rumours that Bertha is jealous of her
success here and at Cannes, and I shouldn't be surprised if there were a
break any day. Lily's only safeguard is that Bertha needs her badly--oh,
very badly. The Silverton affair is in the acute stage: it's necessary
that George's attention should be pretty continuously distracted. And I'm
bound to say Lily DOES distract it: I believe he'd marry her tomorrow if
he found out there was anything wrong with Bertha. But you know him--he's
as blind as he's jealous; and of course Lily's present business is to
keep him blind. A clever woman might know just the right moment to tear
off the bandage: but Lily isn't clever in that way, and when George does
open his eyes she'll probably contrive not to be in his line of vision."

Selden tossed away his cigarette. "By Jove--it's time for my train," he
exclaimed, with a glance at his watch; adding, in reply to Mrs. Fisher's
surprised comment--"Why, I thought of course you were at Monte!"--a
murmured word to the effect that he was making Nice his head-quarters.

"The worst of it is, she snubs the Brys now," he heard irrelevantly flung
after him.

Ten minutes later, in the high-perched bedroom of an hotel overlooking
the Casino, he was tossing his effects into a couple of gaping
portmanteaux, while the porter waited outside to transport them to the
cab at the door. It took but a brief plunge down the steep white road to
the station to land him safely in the afternoon express for Nice; and not
till he was installed in the corner of an empty carriage, did he exclaim
to himself, with a reaction of self-contempt: "What the deuce am I
running away from?"

The pertinence of the question checked Selden's fugitive impulse before
the train had started. It was ridicul