“Why these constant moans? ...? A clairvoyant once told me I’d ‘the bump of Litigation’--a _cause célèbre_ unmistakably defined; so it’s as well, on the whole, to have it over.” “And quite probably; had your statement been correct----” The Ambassadress gently glowed “I’m told it’s simply swarming!” she impenitently said. “Oh Rosa, Rosa....” “And if you doubt it at all, here is an account direct from the Ritz itself,” her Excellency replied, singling out a letter from among the rest: “It is from dear old General Sir Trotter-Stormer. He says: ‘I am the only guest here. I must say, however, the attendance is beyond all praise, more _soigné_ and better than I’ve ever known it to be, but after what you told me, dear friend, I feel _distinctly uncomfortable_ when the hour for bye-bye comes!’” “Pish; what evidence, pray, is that?” “I regard it as of the very first importance! Sir Trotter admits--a distinguished soldier admits, his uneasiness; and who knows, he is so brave about concealing his woes--his two wives left him!--what he may not have patiently and stoically endured?” “Less I am sure, my dear, than I of late in listening sometimes to you.” “I will write I think and press him for a more detailed report....” The Ambassador turned away. “She should no more be trusted with ink than a child with firearms!” he declared, addressing himself with studious indirectness to a garden-snail. Lady Something blinked. “Life is a compound,” she murmured again. “Particularly for women!” the Authoress agreed. “Ah, well,” the Ambassadress majestically rose: “I must be off and issue household orders; although I derive hardly my usual amount of enjoyment at present, I regret to say, from my morning consultations with the cook....” XI It had been once the whim, and was now the felicitous habit of the Countess of Tolga to present Count Cabinet annually with a bouquet of flowers. It was as if Venus-Anadyomene herself, standing[6] on a shell and wafted by all the piquant whispers of the town and court, would intrude upon the flattered exile (with her well-wired orchids, and malicious, soulless, laughter), to awaken delicate, pagan images, of a trecento, Tuscan Greece. But upon this occasion desirous of introducing some new features, the Countess decided on presenting the fallen senator with a pannier of well-grown, early pears, a small “heath,” and the Erotic Poems bound in half calf with tasteful tooling of a Schoolboy Poet, cherishable chiefly, perhaps, for the vignette frontispiece of the author. Moreover, acting on an impulse she was never able afterwards to explain, she had invited Mademoiselle Olga Blumenghast to accompany her. Never had summer shown a day more propitiously clement, than the afternoon in mid-Autumn they prepared to set out.