swans have flown! You ought not to try to stick it out; that would
only make it harder for everyone. Suppose you let me telephone your
mother to wire you to come home by the evening train?"

"Anything, rather than have her come at me like that again. It puts me
in a perfectly impossible position, and he _is_ so fine!"

"Of course it does," said Miss Broadwood sympathetically, "and there
is no good to be got from facing it. I will stay because such things
interest me, and Frau Lichtenfeld will stay because she has no money to
get away, and Buisson will stay because he feels somewhat responsible.
These complications are interesting enough to cold-blooded folk
like myself who have an eye for the dramatic element, but they are
distracting and demoralizing to young people with any serious purpose in
life."

Miss Broadwood's counsel was all the more generous seeing that, for her,
the most interesting element of this denouement would be eliminated by
Imogen's departure. "If she goes now, she'll get over it," soliloquized
Miss Broadwood. "If she stays, she'll be wrung for him and the hurt may
go deep enough to last. I haven't the heart to see her spoiling things
for herself." She telephoned Mrs. Willard and helped Imogen to pack. She
even took it upon herself to break the news of Imogen's going to Arthur,
who remarked, as he rolled a cigarette in his nerveless fingers:

"Right enough, too. What should she do here with old cynics like you and
me, Jimmy? Seeing that she is brim full of dates and formulae and other
positivisms, and is so girt about with illusions that she still casts
a shadow in the sun. You've been very tender of her, haven't you? I've
watched you. And to think it may all be gone when we see her next. 'The
common fate of all things rare,' you know. What a good fellow you
are, anyway, Jimmy," he added, putting his hands affectionately on her
shoulders.

Arthur went with them to the station. Flavia was so prostrated by the
concerted action of her guests that she was able to see Imogen only
for a moment in her darkened sleeping chamber, where she kissed her
hysterically, without lifting her head, bandaged in aromatic vinegar.
On the way to the station both Arthur and Imogen threw the burden of
keeping up appearances entirely upon Miss Broadwood, who blithely rose
to the occasion. When Hamilton carried Imogen's bag into the car, Miss
Broadwood detained her for a moment, whispering as she gave her a large,
warm h