left Venice. Think--think about what? His future seemed to him
a negligible matter since he had received, two months earlier, the few
lines in which Susy had asked him for her freedom.

The letter had been a shock--though he had fancied himself so prepared
for it--yet it had also, in another sense, been a relief, since, now
that at last circumstances compelled him to write to her, they also told
him what to say. And he had said it as briefly and simply as possible,
telling her that he would put no obstacle in the way of her release,
that he held himself at her lawyer's disposal to answer any further
communication--and that he would never forget their days together, or
cease to bless her for them.

That was all. He gave his Roman banker's address, and waited for another
letter; but none came. Probably the "formalities," whatever they were,
took longer than he had supposed; and being in no haste to recover his
own liberty, he did not try to learn the cause of the delay. From that
moment, however, he considered himself virtually free, and ceased, by
the same token, to take any interest in his own future. His life seemed
as flat as a convalescent's first days after the fever has dropped.

The only thing he was sure of was that he was not going to remain in
the Hickses' employ: when they left Rome for Central Asia he had no
intention of accompanying them. The part of Mr. Buttles' successor was
becoming daily more intolerable to him, for the very reasons that had
probably made it most gratifying to Mr. Buttles. To be treated by Mr.
and Mrs. Hicks as a paid oracle, a paraded and petted piece of property,
was a good deal more distasteful than he could have imagined any
relation with these kindly people could be. And since their aspirations
had become frankly social he found his task, if easier, yet far less
congenial than during his first months with them. He preferred patiently
explaining to Mrs. Hicks, for the hundredth time, that Sassanian and
Saracenic were not interchangeable terms, to unravelling for her the
genealogies of her titled guests, and reminding her, when she "seated"
her dinner-parties, that Dukes ranked higher than Princes. No--the job
was decidedly intolerable; and he would have to look out for another
means of earning his living. But that was not what he had really got
away to think about. He knew he should never starve; he had even begun
to believe again in his book. What he wanted to think of was Susy--or