ingers in simulation
of bones, and shuffled after the couple on stamping feet.

Susy sank down on a sofa near the window, fanning herself with a
floating scarf, and the men foraged for cigarettes, and rang for the
gondoliers, who came in with trays of cooling drinks.

"Well, what next--this ain't all, is it?" Gillow presently queried, from
the divan where he lolled half-asleep with dripping brow. Fred Gillow,
like Nature, abhorred a void, and it was inconceivable to him that every
hour of man's rational existence should not furnish a motive for getting
up and going somewhere else. Young Breckenridge, who took the same view,
and the Prince, who earnestly desired to, reminded the company that
somebody they knew was giving a dance that night at the Lido.

Strefford vetoed the Lido, on the ground that he'd just come back from
there, and proposed that they should go out on foot for a change.

"Why not? What fun!" Susy was up in an instant. "Let's pay somebody a
surprise visit--I don't know who! Streffy, Prince, can't you think of
somebody who'd be particularly annoyed by our arrival?"

"Oh, the list's too long. Let's start, and choose our victim on the
way," Strefford suggested.

Susy ran to her room for a light cloak, and without changing her
high-heeled satin slippers went out with the four men. There was no
moon--thank heaven there was no moon!--but the stars hung over them as
close as fruit, and secret fragrances dropped on them from garden-walls.
Susy's heart tightened with memories of Como.

They wandered on, laughing and dawdling, and yielding to the drifting
whims of aimless people. Presently someone proposed taking a nearer look
at the facade of San Giorgio Maggiore, and they hailed a gondola and
were rowed out through the bobbing lanterns and twanging guitar-strings.
When they landed again, Gillow, always acutely bored by scenery, and
particularly resentful of midnight aesthetics, suggested a night club
near at hand, which was said to be jolly. The Prince warmly supported
this proposal; but on Susy's curt refusal they started their rambling
again, circuitously threading the vague dark lanes and making for the
Piazza and Florian's ices. Suddenly, at a calle-corner, unfamiliar and
yet somehow known to her, Susy paused to stare about her with a laugh.

"But the Hickses--surely that's their palace? And the windows all lit
up! They must be giving a party! Oh, do let's go up and surprise them!"
The idea struck he