tter on the stones he
leaned back, looking sharply to right and left. He soon had to give up
thought of finding them, but made the coachman turn round and round
again. All day he drove about, far into the country, and kept urging the
driver to use greater speed. He was in a strange state of hurry and
elation. Finally, he dined at a little country inn; and this gave the
measure of his disturbance--the dinner was atrocious.

Returning late in the evening he found a note written by Traquair. "Are
you in your senses, man?" it asked; "we have no more time to waste idling
about here. If you want to rejoin us, come on to Danielli's Hotel,
Venice." Swithin chuckled when he read it, and feeling frightfully
tired, went to bed and slept like a log.

VI

Three weeks later he was still in Salzburg, no longer at the Goldene Alp,
but in rooms over a shop near the Boleskeys'. He had spent a small
fortune in the purchase of flowers. Margit would croon over them, but
Rozsi, with a sober "Many tanks!" as if they were her right, would look
long at herself in the glass, and pin one into her hair. Swithin ceased
to wonder; he ceased to wonder at anything they did. One evening he
found Boleskey deep in conversation with a pale, dishevelled-looking
person.

"Our friend Mr. Forsyte--Count D....," said Boleskey.

Swithin experienced a faint, unavoidable emotion; but looking at the
Count's trousers, he thought: 'Doesn't look much like one!' And with an
ironic bow to the silent girls, he turned, and took his hat. But when he
had reached the bottom of the dark stairs he heard footsteps. Rozsi came
running down, looked out at the door, and put her hands up to her breast
as if disappointed; suddenly with a quick glance round she saw him.
Swithin caught her arm. She slipped away, and her face seemed to bubble
with defiance or laughter; she ran up three steps, stopped, looked at him
across her shoulder, and fled on up the stairs. Swithin went out
bewildered and annoyed.

'What was she going to say to me?' he kept thinking. During these three
weeks he had asked himself all sorts of questions: whether he were being
made a fool of; whether she were in love with him; what he was doing
there, and sometimes at night, with all his candles burning as if he
wanted light, the breeze blowing on him through the window, his cigar,
half-smoked, in his hand, he sat, an hour or more, staring at the wall.
'Enough of this!' he thought every m