Observe Venice. We will always be found on Venice’s side, and why? because she is a darling. Mark her now, and how the smoke about her clears, how clean she is, and so excited! For Venice! You know she is excited because she is so still, there between her hard father and her monstrous fat mother. Mark her there, a green flower with a mad golden head. And her eyes are blue, mad blue, and she is the queen of ten thousand freckles, of which she is very contemptuous, saying: “Who wants freckles?” And she had a noble forehead which would crinkle when she did not catch what you said, and that was often enough, for she was always talking herself. “Darling, darling, _darling_!” That is what she would say. And on her lion’s-cub head was a tumult of short dusty-gold hair, which was by nature rebellious, so that she must ever and again be giving her head a fierce backward shake, as though that was going to do any good. Mark her there, so sedate between her hard father and her monstrous fat mother. Not sedate really, Venice! Yet she must be sedate now, for Venice, who by ordinary knew not fear, was as though fascinated by fear of her father, who was none other than Nathaniel Pollen, once of Manchester, but now of Hampshire and Berkeley Square, for was he not as rich as Crœsus would have been had Crœsus owned the half of the newspapers of England? So there sat Venice, most excited-still, undoubtedly waiting for Napier. They were lovers, Napier and Venice, and in three days they would be married. Dark, shy, handsome Napier! Favourite of the gods, you might well call him, yet his was that rare, surprising quality which will keep a man poised in continual sunshine, which will never let him droop and laze in the certainty that his sins of omission and casualness will be forgiven him. He was, to talk for a change of the things that matter, in the Foreign Office, and worked conscientiously hard at a career which would--“undoubtedly,” they said, “undoubtedly”--in the course of time place Napier among the most honoured of the nation’s servants; although he would--“undoubtedly,” one can’t help feeling, “undoubtedly”--reach in the course of time the very same pinnacle if he did no work at all, for England and America are the only two countries left in the world wherein men’s charm and good looks are really appreciated by men in the political, high financial, diplomatic, and educational spheres. Our table faced the swing-doors across the room, and through the crowd of dancers one could see who passed in and out. There was a press of young men standing vaguely by the door, perhaps doubtful whether they should stay or go to return another day. A very haughty and flushed-looking lady, expensively dressed in a _dernier cri_, which she wore like armour, tramped past them, looked suspiciously into their bland faces, and out. She suspected they might be thinking she was going to more than powder her nose. They were, she was, who cared?