"Do you think they'll consider it
odd that you don't shout at me too?"

"You might explain that you can tell what I am saying by looking at my
lips," she said. He was immensely relieved.

Considerable difficulty had to be overcome at the Bristol in the matter
of rooms. Without going into details, Brock resignedly took the only
room left in the crowded hotel--a six by ten cubby-hole on the top floor
overlooking the air-shaft. He had to go down one flight for his morning
tub, and he never got it because he refused to stand in line and await
his turn. Mrs. Medcroft had the choicest room in the hotel, looking down
upon the beautiful Kaerntner-Ring. Constance proposed, in the goodness of
her heart, to give up to Brock her own room, adjoining that of her
sister, provided Edith would take her in to sleep with her. Edith was
perfectly willing, but interposed the sage conclusion that gossiping
menials might not appreciate a preference so unique.

Mr. Roxbury Medcroft's sky parlour adjoined the elevator shaft. The head
of his bed was in close proximity to the upper mechanism of the lift, a
thin wall intervening. A French architect, who had a room hard by, met
Brock in the hall, hollow-eyed and haggard, on the morning after their
first night. He shouted lugubrious congratulations in Brock's ear, just
as if Brock's ear had not been harassed a whole night long by shrieking
wheels and rasping cables.

"Monsieur is very fortunate in being so afflicted," he boomed. "A
thousand times in the night have I wished that I might be deaf also. Ah,
even an affliction such as yours, monsieur, has its benedictions!"

Matters drifted along smoothly, even merrily, for several days. They
were all young and full of the joy of living. They laughed in secret
over the mishaps and perils; they whiffed and enjoyed the spice that
filled the atmosphere in which they lived. They visited the gardens and
the Hofs, the Chateau at Schoenbrunn, the Imperial stables, the gay
"Venice in Vienna"; they attended the opera and the concerts, ever in a
most circumspect "trinity," as Brock had come to classify their parties.
Like a dutiful husband, he always included his wife in the expeditions.

"You are not only a most exemplary wife, Mrs. Medcroft," he declared,
"but an unusually agreeable chaperon. I don't know how Constance and I
could get on without you."

But the day of severest trial was now at hand. The Rodneys were arriving
on the fifth day from Berlin. D