"Mrs. Milbanke has regenerated us--for the moment!" she cried. "I can't play roulette to-night. But our turn will come; Mrs. Milbanke. We will be revenged on you!" Her shrewd, smiling glance passed rapidly over Clodagh's face. Again the whole company laughed. "Mrs. Milbanke is a feminine Sir Galahad!" said Luard. "By the way, Lady Frances, when is our irreproachable knight to honour Venice with his presence?" He turned and looked banteringly at his hostess. Lady Frances smiled. "Oh, any day now," she returned. "But aren't you rather incorrigible?" "So Sir Galahad thinks!" he retorted, unabashed. "Is he an acquaintance of yours, Mrs. Milbanke?" Clodagh smiled uncertainly; and Lady Frances laughed. "How ridiculous of you to expect Mrs. Milbanke to read your riddles!" she said sharply. "The person this very disrespectful young man is speaking of, Mrs. Milbanke, is Sir Walter Gore----" "The most admirable Sir Walter Gore!" interjected Luard. Lady Frances' sallow face flushed very slightly. "--Sir Walter Gore," she went on, ignoring the interruption, "who is only twenty-nine--has been ten times round the world--and is imbued with the deepest contempt for all modern social things." She laughed again, as she finished; but a fleeting change of expression had passed over her face. Clodagh looked up smilingly. "And where is the likeness to me?" she asked. "Oh, you are both above mere human temptations, Mrs. Milbanke!" Luard broke in irrepressibly. Lord Deerehurst, who had been listening to the conversation, lifted his eyeglass. "But then Sir Walter Gore has been ten times round the world," he remarked in his thin, dry voice. "And this is Mrs. Milbanke's first visit to Venice." Again they all laughed, and Clodagh coloured. "You think my stoicism would not wear well?" she asked. Deerehurst looked at her searchingly. "Stoicism may be born of many characteristics," he said. "I am not in a position to say from what yours springs. But"--he lowered his voice.--"I do not think you are a natural stoic." She laughed and glanced uneasily round the little company, already beginning to break up into groups of two and three. Observing the look, Lady Frances turned to her tactfully. "Come, Lord Deerehurst!" she cried. "We are getting too serious. If you _must_ philosophise, take Mrs. Milbanke on to the balcony, where she will have something to distract her thoughts. For myself, I want to hear Valentine sing. Val!" she called. "Come to the piano and make some music! I'm surfeited with stringed instruments and Italian voices." She moved across the salon; and Lord Deerehurst turned to Clodagh. "May I follow our hostess's suggestion? May I talk philosophy on the balcony?" She smiled. The slight strain, of which she had been conscious ever since the incident of the roulette, lifted suddenly, and her earlier sensation of elated excitement returned.