t hardly forty-eight hours had passed since his encounter
with Coral in the Scalzi.

Mr. Buttles, instead of speaking, had tentatively approached his table.
"May I take this seat for a moment, Mr. Lansing? Thank you. No, I am
not here as an advance guard--though I believe the Ibis is due some
time to-morrow." He cleared his throat, wiped his eyeglasses on a silk
handkerchief, replaced them on his nose, and went on solemnly: "Perhaps,
to clear up any possible misunderstanding, I ought to say that I am no
longer in the employ of Mr. Hicks."

Lansing glanced at him sympathetically. It was clear that he suffered
horribly in imparting this information, though his compact face did not
lend itself to any dramatic display of emotion.

"Really," Nick smiled, and then ventured: "I hope it's not owing to
conscientious objections to Tiepolo?"

Mr. Buttles's blush became a smouldering agony. "Ah, Miss Hicks
mentioned to you... told you...? No, Mr. Lansing. I am principled
against the effete art of Tiepolo, and of all his contemporaries, I
confess; but if Miss Hicks chooses to surrender herself momentarily
to the unwholesome spell of the Italian decadence it is not for me to
protest or to criticize. Her intellectual and aesthetic range so far
exceeds my humble capacity that it would be ridiculous, unbecoming...."

He broke off, and once more wiped a faint moisture from his eyeglasses.
It was evident that he was suffering from a distress which he longed and
yet dreaded to communicate. But Nick made no farther effort to bridge
the gulf of his own preoccupations; and Mr. Buttles, after an expectant
pause, went on: "If you see me here to-day it is only because, after
a somewhat abrupt departure, I find myself unable to take leave of
our friends without a last look at the Ibis--the scene of so many
stimulating hours. But I must beg you," he added earnestly, "should you
see Miss Hicks--or any other member of the party--to make no allusion
to my presence in Genoa. I wish," said Mr. Buttles with simplicity, "to
preserve the strictest incognito."

Lansing glanced at him kindly. "Oh, but--isn't that a little
unfriendly?"

"No other course is possible, Mr. Lansing," said the ex-secretary, "and
I commit myself to your discretion. The truth is, if I am here it is not
to look once more at the Ibis, but at Miss Hicks: once only. You will
understand me, and appreciate what I am suffering."

He bowed again, and trotted away on his small, tig