ulgar there too. Besides, there may be reasons
why it would not be good for me to live in Rome."

She glanced at him again less impertinently, and suddenly her whole body
looked softer and kinder.

"You must put up with my face, Robin," she added. "It's no good wishing
me to be ugly. It's no use. I can't be."

She laughed. Her ill-humour had entirely vanished.

"If you were--" he said. "If you were--!"

"What then?"

"Do you think no one would stick to you--stick to you for yourself?"

"Oh, yes."

"Who, then?"

"Quite several old ladies. It's very strange, but old ladies of a
certain class--the almost obsolete class that wears caps and connects
piety with black brocade--like me. They think me 'a bright young thing.'
And so I am."

"I don't know what you are. Sometimes I seem to divine what you are, and
then--then your face is like a cloud which obscures you--except when you
are singing."

She laughed frankly.

"Poor Robin! It was always your great fault--trying to plumb shallows
and to take high dives into water half a foot deep."

He was silent for a minute. At last he said:

"And your husband?"

"Fritz!"

His forehead contracted.

"Fritz--yes. What does he do? Try to walk in ocean depths?"

"You needn't sneer at Fritz," she said sharply.

"I beg your pardon."

"Fritz doesn't bother about shallows and depths. He loves me absurdly,
and that's quite enough for him."

"And for you."

She nodded gravely.

"And what would Fritz do if you were to lose your beauty? Would he be
like all the other men? Would he cease to care?"

For the first time Lady Holme looked really thoughtful--almost painfully
thoughtful.

"One's husband," she said slowly. "Perhaps he's different. He--he ought
to be different."

A faint suggestion of terror came into her large brown eyes.

"There's a strong tie, you know, whatever people may say, a very strong
tie in marriage," she murmured, as if she were thinking out something
for herself. "Fritz ought to love me, even if--if--"

She broke off and looked about the room. Robin Pierce glanced round too
over the chattering guests sitting or standing in easy or lazy postures,
smiling vaguely, or looking grave and indifferent. Mrs. Wolfstein was
laughing, and yawned suddenly in the midst of her mirth. Lady Cardington
said something apparently tragic, to Mr. Bry, who was polishing his
eyeglass and pouting out his dewy lips. Sir Donald Ulford, wandering
round the walls,