“I have n’t the least idea what we are going to do. I have nothing to say about it whatever. Gordon tells me every day I must decide, and then I ask Captain Lovelock what he thinks; because, you see, he always thinks a great deal. Captain Lovelock says he does n’t care a fig--that he will go wherever I go. So you see that does n’t carry us very far. I want to settle on some place where Captain Lovelock won’t go, but he won’t help me at all. I think it will look better for him not to follow us; don’t you think it will look better, Mrs. Vivian? Not that I care in the least where we go--or whether Captain Lovelock follows us, either. I don’t take any interest in anything, Mrs. Vivian; don’t you think that is very sad? Gordon may go anywhere he likes--to St. Petersburg, or to Bombay.” “You might go to a worse place than Bombay,” said Captain Lovelock, speaking with the authority of an Anglo-Indian rich in reminiscences. Blanche gave him a little stare. “Ah well, that ‘s knocked on the head! From the way you speak of it, I think you would come after us; and the more I think of that, the more I see it would n’t do. But we have got to go to some southern place, because I am very unwell. I have n’t the least idea what ‘s the matter with me, and neither has any one else; but that does n’t make any difference. It ‘s settled that I am out of health. One might as well be out of it as in it, for all the advantage it is. If you are out of health, at any rate you can come abroad. It was Gordon’s discovery--he ‘s always making discoveries. You see it ‘s because I ‘m so silly; he can always put it down to my being an invalid. What I should like to do, Mrs. Vivian, would be to spend the winter with you--just sitting on the sofa beside you and holding your hand. It would be rather tiresome for you; but I really think it would be better for me than anything else. I have never forgotten how kind you were to me before my marriage--that summer at Baden. You were everything to me--you and Captain Lovelock. I am sure I should be happy if I never went out of this lovely room. You have got it so beautifully arranged--I mean to do my own room just like it when I go home. And you have got such lovely clothes. You never used to say anything about it, but you and Angela always had better clothes than I. Are you always so quiet and serious--never talking about chiffons--always reading some wonderful book? I wish you would let me come and stay with you. If you only ask me, Gordon would be too delighted. He would n’t have to trouble about me any more. He could go and live over in the Latin Quarter--that ‘s the desire of his heart--and think of nothing but old bottles. I know it is n’t very good manners to beg for an invitation,” Blanche went on, smiling with a gentler radiance; “but when it ‘s a question of one’s health. One wants to keep one’s self alive--does n’t one? One wants to keep one’s self going. It would be so good for me, Mrs.