tly
like you."

Mrs. Arbuthnot smiled and said good-bye and thanked him. Without
the least trouble and at once she had got him placed in his proper
category: he was an artist and of an effervescent temperament.

She shook hands and left, and he wished she hadn't. After she
was gone he supposed that he ought to have asked for those references,
if only because she would think him so unbusiness-like not to, but he
could as soon have insisted on references from a saint in a nimbus as
from that grave, sweet lady.

Rose Arbuthnot.

Her letter, making the appointment, lay on the table.

Pretty name.

That difficulty, then, was overcome. But there still remained
the other one, the really annihilating effect of the expense on the
nest-eggs, and especially on Mrs. Wilkins's, which was in size,
compared with Mrs. Arbuthnot's, as the egg of the plover to that of the
duck; and this in its turn was overcome by the vision vouchsafed to
Mrs. Wilkins, revealing to her the steps to be taken for its
overcoming. Having got San Salvatore--the beautiful, the religious
name, fascinated them--they in their turn would advertise in the Agony
Column of The Times, and would inquire after two more ladies, of
similar desires to their own, to join them and share the expenses.

At once the strain of the nest-eggs would be reduced from half to
a quarter. Mrs. Wilkins was prepared to fling her entire egg into the
adventure, but she realized that if it were to cost even sixpence over
her ninety pounds her position would be terrible. Imagine going to
Mellersh and saying, "I owe." It would be awful enough if some day
circumstances forced her to say, "I have no nest-egg," but at least she
would be supported in such a case by the knowledge that the egg had
been her own. She therefore, though prepared to fling her last penny
into the adventure, was not prepared to fling into it a single farthing
that was not demonstrably her own; and she felt that if her share of
the rent was reduced to fifteen pounds only, she would have a safe
margin for the other expenses. Also they might economise very much on
food--gather olives off their own trees and eat them, for instance, and
perhaps catch fish.

Of course, as they pointed out to each other, they could reduce
the rent to an almost negligible sum by increasing the number of
sharers; they could have six more ladies instead of two if they wanted
to, seeing that there were eight beds. But supposing t