Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images available at The Internet Archive) SYLVIA & MICHAEL _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ SYLVIA & MICHAEL PLASHERS MEAD SYLVIA SCARLETT Harper & Brothers _Publishers_ AUTHOR'S NOTE I need scarcely say that in 1915 there was no Passport Office in Bucharest, and that so far as I am aware there are no portraits in this book. If any of the characters achieve the effect of portraits, it may be due to their wearing uniform, which makes every one look alike. Further I should like to emphasise that this volume is really Book Three of _Sylvia Scarlett_, and is only published separately on account of the difficulties of production. SYLVIA & MICHAEL THE LATER ADVENTURES OF SYLVIA SCARLETT _By COMPTON MACKENZIE_ _Author of_ "SYLVIA SCARLETT" "PLASHERS MEAD" ETC. [Illustration: colophon] HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON SYLVIA & MICHAEL Copyright, 1919, by Harper & Brothers Printed in the United States of America Published July, 1919 TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER AND IN DEEP AFFECTION TO MY MOTHER SYLVIA & MICHAEL _Sylvia & Michael_ CHAPTER I By the time that Sylvia reached Paris she no longer blamed anybody but herself for what had happened. Everything had come about through her own greed in trying simultaneously to snatch from life artistic success and domestic bliss: she had never made a serious attempt to choose between them, and now she had lost both; for she could not expect to run away like this and succeed elsewhere to the same degree or even in the same way as in London. No doubt all her friends would deplore the step she had taken and think it madness to ruin her career; but after so much advertisement of her marriage, after the way she had revealed her most intimate thoughts to Olive, after the confidence she had shown in Arthur's devotion, there was nothing else but to run away. Yet now that the engagement had been definitely broken she felt no bitterness toward Arthur: the surprising factor was that he should have waited so long. Moreover, behind all her outraged pride, behind her regret for losing so much, deep in her mind burned a flickering intuition that she had really lost very little, and that out of this new adventure would spring a new self worthier to demand success, and more finely tempered to withstand life's onset. Even when she was sitting beneath the mulberry-tree in the first turmoil of the shock, she had felt a faint gladness that she was not going to live in Mulberry Cottage with Arthur. Already on this May morning of Paris with the chestnuts in their flowery prime she could fling behind her all the sneers and all the pity for her jilting; and though she had scarcely any money she was almost glad of her poverty, glad to be plunged once again into the vortex of existence with all the