"Seven is considered a round, complete, and therefore sacred, number, though the wife of Bath only had five," observed Mr. Welbourne thoughtfully. "Bath! What Bath? D'you mean Lord Bath's wife?" Dorris asked. "And did he get her divorced?" "For the Land's sake, Miss Boundrish," shouted Mrs. Dinwiddie, the American lady, "if you don't just tickle me to death! Lord Bath----" while the thin man chuckled grimly to himself. "I never _can_ remember about titled people," Dorris complained bitterly, as if this defect of memory was owing to the malice of present company. "And I should have thought that Americans never knew anything to forget," she added vindictively. "That is so--'cept when we marry dukes. But don't you fret, Miss Boundrish, there's a sight of things better worth knowing than that, you put your bottom dollar on it." Agatha and Lady Seaton had in the meantime drawn Mrs. Boundrish into other talk, and the thin man had reminded them of an early promise to come to a private view of his sketches, in which project Miss Boundrish, who was within earshot, promptly included herself. The American went off in another direction, and Ermengarde, unable to stir an inch without attracting attention, kept her eyes fiercely shut, so as to look asleep, till the footsteps died away. Then she rose and went round to the front of the terrace, where Agatha still sat among the flowers, with a fountain pen and a paper partially covered with cipher in her hand, but looking over the sunny amplitude of space to the sea. She started at seeing Ermengarde, and seemed relieved when the latter told her she had been dozing behind the trellis, and had waked to hear the conversation. "For your part of which, thank you," she said, smiling. "No doubt I ought to have got away, but I hadn't wit or pluck enough," she added, sitting by Agatha, and laying her hand caressingly on her arm. "What that horrid cat said about popping jewellery was partly true. I sold the chain I got at the Carnival, and--a ring--and--h'm--I redeemed the ring only yesterday--there it is--and I hope nobody else will ever know what a fool I've been. The solid truth is, I should have had to go home to England at once if I hadn't got back those few louis I lost that afternoon--and I badly wanted to stay on." "Did Mr. Mosson give you a wrinkle, or was it pure luck?" Agatha asked, warmed to the heart by this unwonted cordiality. "Oh, pure luck."