MR. COMPTON MACKENZIE gives us in _Sylvia and Michael_ (SECKER) a continuation--I hesitate to say a conclusion--of the adventures of that amazing heroine, _Sylvia Scarlett_, which, being not a sequel but a second volume, needs some familiarity with the first for its full enjoyment. Not that anyone even meeting _Sylvia_ for the first time in mid-course could fail to be intrigued by the astounding things that are continually happening to her. The variety and piquancy of these events and the general brilliance of Mr. MACKENZIE'S colouring must keep the reader alert, curious, scandalized (perhaps), but always expectant. His scheme starts with an invigorating plunge (as one might say, off the deep end) into the cabaret society of Petrograd in 1914, where _Sylvia_ and the more than queer company at the pension of _Mère Gontran_ are surprised by the outbreak of war. Incidentally, _Mère Gontran_ herself, with her cats, whose tails wave in the gloom "like seaweed," and her tawdry spiritualism--"key-hole peeping at infinity" the heroine (or the author) rather happily calls it--is one of the least forgettable figures in the galaxy. I have no space to indicate what turns of this glittering kaleidoscope eventually bring _Sylvia_ and _Michael_ together during the Serbian retreat, though there are scenes upon which I should like to dwell, notably that of the death of _Guy Hazlewood_, an incident whose admirable restraint shows Mr. MACKENZIE at his best. One question I have to ask, and that is how has _Sylvia_ learnt to imitate so bewilderingly the mannerisms of _Michael_? Her soliloquies especially might have come straight from the first volume of _Sinister Street_, so much more do they suggest the cloistered adolescence of Carlington Road than a development from her own feverish youth. While I cannot pretend that she has for me the compelling vitality of _Jenny Pearl_, her adventures certainly make (for those who are not too nice about the morals or the conversation of their company) an exhilarating, even intoxicating entertainment, the end of which is, I am glad to think, still remote. * * * * *