her pretty head against the back of a chair.

An Arab dragoman went by among the trees. The strangled yelp of a
motor-car rose out of a cloud of white dust at the bottom of the garden.
The faint cry of a siren came up from the distant sea where _The
Wanderer_ lay at rest. And suddenly Charmian thought, "When am I going
to be here again?"

"Do you ever feel you have lived before in some place when you visit it
for the first time?" she said, moving her head from the back of her
chair.

"I did once."

"Do you ever feel you will live in a place that's new to you, that you
have no connection with, and that you have only come to for a day or
two?"

"I can't say I do."

"I suppose we all have lots of absurd fancies."

"I don't think I do," responded Miss Fleet, quite without arrogance.

"I--I wish you'd tell me where you got that coat and skirt," said
Charmian.

"I will. I got it at Folkestone. I'll give you the address when we go on
board again. My mother lives at Folkestone. She is a companion to a dear
old Mrs. Simpkins, so I go down there whenever I have time."

One's mother companion to a dear old Mrs. Simpkins! How extraordinary!
And why did it make Charmian feel as if she were almost fond of Susan
Fleet?

"And I get really well-cut things for a very small price there, so I'm
lucky."

"I think you are lucky in another way," hazarded Charmian.

"Yes?"

"To be as you are."

After that day in the garden Charmian knew that she was going to be
fond of Susan Fleet. Mrs. Shiffney, of course, did not return on the
following afternoon.

"I daresay she'll be away for a week," Susan said. "If you feel better
we might go and see the town and visit some of the villas. There are
several that are beautiful."

Quite eagerly Charmian acquiesced. But she soon had reason to be sorry
that she had done so. For much that she saw increased her misery. Boldly
now she applied that word to her condition, moved perhaps to be at last
frank with herself by the frankness of her quite unintrusive companion.
Algiers affected her somewhat as the _Petite Fille de Tombouctou_ had
affected her, but much more powerfully. This was exactly how she put it
to herself: it made her feel that she was violently in love with Claude
Heath. What a lie that had been before the mirror after Max Elliot's
party. How dreadful it was to walk in these exquisite and tropical
gardens, to stand upon these terraces, to wander over these marble
pavements