a big workshop,
where each did his own share of the work, and neither asked aid nor gave
it. Do you permit a cigar?"

"Of course; but I 've nothing worth offering you."

"I have, though," said he, producing his case and drawing forth a
cheroot, and examining it with that keen scrutiny and that seeming
foretaste of enjoyment peculiar to smokers. "Try that, and tell me when
you tasted the equal of it. Ah, L'Estrange, we must see and get you out
of this. It's not a place for you. A nice little vicarage in Hants or
Herts, a sunny glebe, with a comfortable house and a wife; later on, a
wife of course, for your sister won't stay with you always."

"You've drawn a pleasant picture--only to rub it out again."

"Miss Julia has got a bad headache, sir," said the maid, entering at
this moment, "and begs you will excuse her. Will you please to have
coffee here or in the drawing-room?"

"Ay, here," said Cutbill, answering the look with which the other
seemed to interrogate him. "She could n't stand it any longer, and no
wonder; but I 'll not keep you away from her now. Go up and say, I 'll
see Lord Culduff in the morning, and if I have any news worth reporting,
I 'll come out here in the afternoon."

CHAPTER XL. "A RECEPTION" AT ROME.

It was the night of the Countess Balderoni's weekly reception, and the
servants had just lighted up the handsome suite of rooms and disposed
the furniture in fitting order, when the Countess and Lady Augusta
Bramleigh entered to take a passing look at the apartment before the
arrival of the guests.

"It is so nice," said Lady Augusta, in her peculiar languid way, "to
live in a country where the people are civilized enough to meet for
intercourse without being fed, or danced, or fiddled for. Now, I tried
this in London; but it was a complete failure. If you tell English
people you are 'at home' every Tuesday or every Thursday evening,
they will make a party some particular night and storm your salons
in hundreds, and you'll be left with three or four visitors for the
remainder of the season. Isn't that so?"

"I suspect it is. But you see how they fall into our ways here; and if
they do not adopt them at home, there may be something in the climate or
the hours which forbids it."

"No, _cara_; it is simply their dogged material spirit, which says,
'We go out for a _dejeune_, or a dinner, or a ball.' There must be
a substantial programme of a something to be eaten or to be done. I
decla