"My energies have been directed into two channels," Sabatini announced. "I have been making preparations for a possible journey, and I have been trying to find a missing man." Arnold looked up quickly. Fenella paused with her glass raised to her lips. "Who is the missing man?" Lady Blennington asked. "Mr. Weatherley," Sabatini replied. "We can scarcely call him that, perhaps, but he has certainly gone off on a little expedition without leaving his address." "Well, you amaze me!" Lady Blennington exclaimed. "I never thought that he was that sort of a husband." "Did you make any discoveries?" asked Arnold. Sabatini shook his head. "None," he confessed. "As an investigator I was a failure. However, I must say that I prosecuted my inquiries in one direction only. It may interest you to know that I have come to the conclusion that Mr. Weatherley's disappearance is not connected in any way with the matters of which we spoke this morning." "Then it remains the more mysterious," declared Arnold. "Fenella, at any rate, is not disposed to wear widow's weeds," remarked Lady Blennington. "Cheer up, dear, he'll come back all right. Husbands always do. It is our other intimate friends who desert us." Fenella laughed. "I am quite sure that you are right," she admitted. "I am not really worried at all. It is a very annoying manner, however, in which to go away, this,--a desertion most unceremonious. And now Andrea here tells me that at any moment he may leave me, too." They all looked at him. He inclined his head gravely. "Nothing is decided," he said. "I have friends abroad who generally let me know when things are stirring. There is a little cloud--it may blow over or it may be the presage of a storm. In a day or two we shall know." "You men are to be envied," Lady Blennington sighed, speaking for a moment more seriously. "You have the power always to roam. You follow the music of the world wherever you will. The drum beats, you pull up your stakes, and away you go. But for us poor women, alas! there is never any pulling up of the stakes. We, too, hear the music--perhaps we hear it oftener than you--but we may not follow." "You have compensations," Sabatini remarked. "We have compensations, of course," Lady Blennington admitted, "but what do they amount to, after all?" "You have also a different set of instincts," Signor di Marito interposed. "There are other things in the life of a woman than to listen always to the wander-music." "The question is as old as the hills," Fenella declared, "and it bores me. I want some more omelette. Really, Andrea, your chef is a treasure. If you get your summons, I think that I shall take him over. Who will come to the theatre with me to-night? I have two stalls for the _Gaiety_." "I can't," Lady Blennington remarked. "I am going to a foolish dinner-party, besides which, of course, you don't want to be bothered with a woman." "Nor can I," Sabatini echoed. "I have appointments all the evening."