Susan replied that she would come up on the following day, and
she duly arrived just before the hour of lunch.

She found Mrs. Shiffney dressed to go out.

"Oh, Susan, what a mercy to see you! We are going to the Ritz. We shall
be by ourselves. I want you to advise me what to do. Things have got so
mixed up. Is the motor there?"

"Yes."

"Come along, then."

At the Ritz, although she met many acquaintances, Mrs. Shiffney would
not join any one for lunch or let any one join her.

"Susan and I have important matters to discuss," she said, smiling.

Her face and manner had completely changed directly she got out of the
motor. She now looked radiant, like one for whom life held nothing but
good things. And all the time she and Susan were lunching and talking
she preserved a radiant demeanor. Her reward was that everyone said how
handsome Adelaide Shiffney was looking. She even succeeded in continuing
to look handsome when she found that Susan had made private plans for
the immediate future.

"I've promised to go to Algiers," Susan said over the _oeufs en
cocotte_, when Mrs. Shiffney asked what was to be done to make things
lively.

"To Algiers! Why? What is there to do there? You know it inside out."

"Scarcely that. I'm going to stay with Charmian Heath."

Mrs. Shiffney's large mouth suddenly looked a little hard, though her
general expression hardly altered.

"Oh! Whereabouts are they?"

"Up at Mustapha, not far from Mrs. Graham."

"They say he's trying to write an opera. Poor fellow! The very last
thing he could do, I should think. But she pushes him on. Since that
song of his--I forget the name, heart something or other--her head has
been completely turned about his talent. The fact is, Susan, Sennier's
sudden fame has turned all their heads, the young composers, _les
jeunes_, you know. They are all trying to write operas. In Paris it's
too absurd! But an Englishman, with his temperament, too--Oliver
Cromwell in Harris tweed!--she must be mad. Of course even if he ever
finishes it he will never get it produced."

Susan quietly went on eating her eggs.

"A totally unknown man. She thinks that song has made him quite a
celebrity. But nobody has ever heard of him."

"Nobody had ever heard of Sennier till that night at Covent Garden,"
observed Susan, lifting a glass of water to her lips.

"Oh, yes, they had!"

Mrs. Shiffney's musical passion for Sennier often led her to embroider
facts.

"Among t