"And perhaps I shan't be there. Do you know, Lucy, you've got violets growing among the roots of your hair?"
"I know you're going to Paris, to-morrow, to please me."
"Perhaps. And after that we're going to Alassio, and after that to Florence and Rome; all the places where your private secretary—"
"And when," said she, "is my private secretary going to take me home?"
"If his play succeeds, dear, he won't have to take you to that horrid house of his."
"Won't he? But I like it best of all."
"Why, Lucy?"
"Oh, for such a foolish reason. Because he's been in it."
"I'm afraid, darling, some of the houses he's been in—"
At that she fell to a sudden breathless sobbing, as if the life that had come back to her had spent itself again.