NICK LANSING, in the Milan express, was roused by the same barof sunshine lying across his knees. He yawned, looked withdisgust at his stolidly sleeping neighbours, and wondered why hehad decided to go to Milan, and what on earth he should do whenhe got there. The difficulty about trenchant decisions was thatthe next morning they generally left one facing a void ....

　　When the train drew into the station at Milan, he scrambled out,got some coffee, and having drunk it decided to continue hisjourney to Genoa. The state of being carried passively onwardpostponed action and dulled thought; and after twelve hours offurious mental activity that was exactly what he wanted.

　　He fell into a doze again, waking now and then to haggardintervals of more thinking, and then dropping off to the clankand rattle of the train. Inside his head, in his wakingintervals, the same clanking and grinding of wheels and chainswent on unremittingly. He had done all his lucid thinkingwithin an hour of leaving the Palazzo Vanderlyn the nightbefore; since then, his brain had simply continued to revolveindefatigably about the same old problem. His cup of coffee,instead of clearing his thoughts, had merely accelerated theirpace.

　　At Genoa he wandered about in the hot streets, bought a cheapsuit-case and some underclothes, and then went down to the portin search of a little hotel he remembered there. An hour laterhe was sitting in the coffee-room, smoking and glancing vacantlyover the papers while he waited for dinner, when he became awareof being timidly but intently examined by a small round-facedgentleman with eyeglasses who sat alone at the adjoining table.

　　"Hullo--Buttles!" Lansing exclaimed, recognising with surprisethe recalcitrant secretary who had resisted Miss Hicks'sendeavour to convert him to Tiepolo.

　　Mr. Buttles, blushing to the roots of his scant hair, half roseand bowed ceremoniously.

　　Nick Lansing's first feeling was of annoyance at being disturbedin his solitary broodings; his next, of relief at having topostpone them even to converse with Mr. Buttles.

　　"No idea you were here: is the yacht in harbour?" he asked,remembering that the Ibis must be just about to spread herwings.

　　Mr. Buttles, at salute behind his chair, signed a mute negation:

　　for the moment he seemed too embarrassed to speak.

　　"Ah--you're here as an advance guard? I remember now--I sawMiss Hicks in Venice the day before yesterday," Lansingcontinued, dazed at the thought that hardly forty-eight hourshad passed since his encounter with Coral in the Scalzi.

　　Mr. Buttles, instead of speaking, had tentatively approached histable. "May I take this seat for a moment, Mr. Lansing? Thankyou. No, I am not here as an advance guard--though I believethe Ibis is due some time to-morrow." He cleared his throat,wiped his eyeglasses on a silk handkerchief, replaced them onhis nose, and went on solemnly: "Perhaps, to clear up anypossible misunderstanding, I ought to say that I am no longer inthe employ of Mr. Hicks."Lansing glanced at him sympathetically. It was clear that hesuffered horribly in imparting this information, though hiscompact face did not lend itself to any dramatic display ofemotion.

　　"Really," Nick smiled, and then ventured: "I hope it's notowing to conscientious objections to Tiepolo?"Mr. Buttles's blush became a smouldering agony. "Ah, Miss Hicksmentioned to you ... told you ...? No, Mr. Lansing. I amprincipled against the effete art of Tiepolo, and of all hiscontemporaries, I confess; but if Miss Hicks chooses tosurrender herself momentarily to the unwholesome spell of theItalian decadence it is not for me to protest or to criticize.

　　Her intellectual and aesthetic range so far exceeds my humblecapacity that it would be ridiculous, unbecoming ...."He broke off, and once more wiped a faint moisture from hiseyeglasses. It was evident that he was suffering from adistress which he longed and yet dreaded to communicate. ButNick made no farther effort to bridge the gulf of his ownpreoccupations; and Mr. Buttles, after an expectant pause, wenton: "If you see me here to-day it is only because, after asomewhat abrupt departure, I find myself unable to take leave ofour friends without a last look at the Ibis--the scene of somany stimulating hours. But I must beg you," he addedearnestly, "should you see Miss Hicks--or any other member ofthe party--to make no allusion to my presence in Genoa. Iwish," said Mr. Buttles with simplicity, "to preserve thestrictest incognito."Lansing glanced at him kindly. "Oh, but--isn't that a littleunfriendly?""No other course is possible, Mr. Lansing," said the ex-secretary, "and I commit myself to your discretion. The truthis, if I am here it is not to look once more at the Ibis, but atMiss Hicks: once only. You will understand me, and appreciatewhat I am suffering."He bowed again, and trotted away on his small, tightly-bootedfeet; pausing on the threshold to say: "From the first it washopeless," before he disappeared through the glass doors.

　　A gleam of commiseration flashed through Nick's mind: there wassomething quaintly poignant in the sight of the brisk andefficient Mr. Buttles reduced to a limp image of unrequitedpassion. And what a painful surprise to the Hickses to be thussuddenly deprived of the secretary who possessed "the foreignlanguages"! Mr. Beck kept the accounts and settled with thehotel-keepers; but it was Mr. Buttles's loftier task toentertain in their own tongues the unknown geniuses who flockedabout the Hickses, and Nick could imagine how disconcerting hisdeparture must be on the eve of their Grecian cruise which Mrs.

　　Hicks would certainly call an Odyssey.

　　The next moment the vision of Coral's hopeless suitor had faded,and Nick was once more spinning around on the wheel of his ownwoes. The night before, when he had sent his note to Susy, froma little restaurant close to Palazzo Vanderlyn that they oftenpatronized, he had done so with the firm intention of going awayfor a day or two in order to collect his wits and think over thesituation. But after his letter had been entrusted to thelandlord's little son, who was a particular friend of Susy's,Nick had decided to await the lad's return. The messenger hadnot been bidden to ask for an answer; but Nick, knowing thefriendly and inquisitive Italian mind, was almost sure that theboy, in the hope of catching a glimpse of Susy, would lingerabout while the letter was carried up. And he pictured the maidknocking at his wife's darkened room, and Susy dashing somepowder on her tear-stained face before she turned on the light--poor foolish child!

　　The boy had returned rather sooner than Nick expected, and hehad brought no answer, but merely the statement that thesignora was out: that everybody was out.

　　"Everybody?""The signora and the four gentlemen who were dining at thepalace. They all went out together on foot soon after dinner.

　　There was no one to whom I could give the note but the gondolieron the landing, for the signora had said she would be very late,and had sent the maid to bed; and the maid had, of course, goneout immediately with her innamorato.""Ah--" said Nick, slipping his reward into the boy's hand, andwalking out of the restaurant.

　　Susy had gone out--gone out with their usual band, as she didevery night in these sultry summer weeks, gone out after hertalk with Nick, as if nothing had happened, as if his wholeworld and hers had not crashed in ruins at their feet. Ah, poorSusy! After all, she had merely obeyed the instinct of selfpreservation, the old hard habit of keeping up, going ahead andhiding her troubles; unless indeed the habit had alreadyengendered indifference, and it had become as easy for her asfor most of her friends to pass from drama to dancing, fromsorrow to the cinema. What of soul was left, he wondered--?

　　His train did not start till midnight, and after leaving therestaurant Nick tramped the sultry by-ways till his tired legsbrought him to a standstill under the vine-covered pergola of agondolier's wine-shop at a landing close to the Piazzetta.

　　There he could absorb cooling drinks until it was time to go tothe station.

　　It was after eleven, and he was beginning to look about for aboat, when a black prow pushed up to the steps, and with muchchaff and laughter a party of young people in evening dressjumped out. Nick, from under the darkness of the vine, saw thatthere was only one lady among them, and it did not need the lampabove the landing to reveal her identity. Susy, bareheaded andlaughing, a light scarf slipping from her bare shoulders, acigarette between her fingers, took Strefford's arm and turnedin the direction of Florian's, with Gillow, the Prince and youngBreckenridge in her wake ....

　　Nick had relived this rapid scene hundreds of times during hishours in the train and his aimless trampings through the streetsof Genoa. In that squirrel-wheel of a world of his and Susy'syou had to keep going or drop out--and Susy, it was evident, hadchosen to keep going. Under the lamp-flare on the landing hehad had a good look at her face, and had seen that the mask ofpaint and powder was carefully enough adjusted to hide anyravages the scene between them might have left. He even fanciedthat she had dropped a little atropine into her eyes ....

　　There was no time to spare if he meant to catch the midnighttrain, and no gondola in sight but that which his wife had justleft. He sprang into it, and bade the gondolier carry him tothe station. The cushions, as he leaned back, gave out a breathof her scent; and in the glare of electric light at the stationhe saw at his feet a rose which had fallen from her dress. Heground his heel into it as he got out.

　　There it was, then; that was the last picture he was to have ofher. For he knew now that he was not going back; at least notto take up their life together. He supposed he should have tosee her once, to talk things over, settle something for theirfuture. He had been sincere in saying that he bore her no ill-w............