Mlle. de Morfontaine has asked me to spend the week-end at her villa in Tivoli. Will I see them there? Oh, yes. We call that the hotbed. Is it all right? Have you any advice to give me before I go? No. Yes, you have. Well, she admitted, drawing her eyebrows together, I advise you to be ... to be stupid. It's hard. You must expect them to be very cordial at first. They have a way of getting very excited about people and then getting tired of them and dropping them. Except every now and then they find someone they like and they adopt him or her for good, and there's a new member of the Cabala. Rome's full of people who went through the rapids and didn't stick. Miss Grier's especially that way. She's just met you lately hasn't she? Why, yes,--just this afternoon. Well, she'll have you around every minute of the day for a while. She's coming over in a minute to ask you to stay to her midnight supper. She has famous midnight suppers. But I can't. I was here to tea and immediately asked to dinner. It would be ridiculous to stay to midnight.... It's not ridiculous in Rome. You're just getting into the rapids, that's all. Everybody cultivates their friendships in rushes. It's very exciting. Don't try and fight against it. If you do that you lose the best of everything. Do you want to know how I know about your being in the rapids? Well, I'll tell you. My fiancé was to have come to the dinner tonight, and an hour before, a note was brought to his house asking him to come next Friday instead and go to the Opera also. She does that often and it only means that she has found some new friend she insists on keeping by her that evening. Of course the second invitation, the consoling one, is always bigger and more showy than the first, but we get angry. I should say so. I'm sorry I was the one to prevent ... Oh, that's all right, she answered. Vittorio's out waiting for me in the car now. So it was that when Blair and I presented ourselves before Miss Grier to take our leave, she drew me aside with an irresistible vehemence and standing against my ear said: You are to come back here tonight. There will be some people in to a late supper whom I want you to meet. You can, can't you? I made some show of protest, and the effect was appalling. But, my dear young man, she cried. I'll have to ask you to trust me. There is something of the first importance that I want to put to you. The fact is I have already telephoned a very dear friend of mine.... Please now, just as a favor to me, put off what you had planned. There's a very great service we want to ask you. Of course with that I fairly folded up, as much with surprise as compliance. Apparently the whole Cabala wanted me to do favors. Thank you, thank you so much. About twelve. It was then about ten. Two hours to kill. We were about to go to the Circus, when Blair exclaimed: