just the right things that are wrong. It's because you're so
political," Nick too lightly explained. "It's your horrible ambition.
The woman who has a salon should have read the article of the month. See
how one dreadful thing leads to another."

"There are some things that lead to nothing," said Mrs. Dallow.

"No doubt--no doubt. And how are you going to get over to your island?"

"I don't know."

"Isn't there a boat?"

"I don't know."

Nick had paused to look round for the boat, but his hostess walked on
without turning her head. "Can you row?" he then asked.

"Don't you know I can do everything?"

"Yes, to be sure. That's why I want to kill you. There's the boat."

"Shall you drown me?" she asked.

"Oh let me perish with you!" Nick answered with a sigh. The boat had
been hidden from them by the bole of a great tree which rose from the
grass at the water's edge. It was moored to a small place of embarkation
and was large enough to hold as many persons as were likely to wish to
visit at once the little temple in the middle of the lake, which Nick
liked because it was absurd and which Mrs. Dallow had never had a
particular esteem for. The lake, fed by a natural spring, was a liberal
sheet of water, measured by the scale of park scenery; and though its
principal merit was that, taken at a distance, it gave a gleam of
abstraction to the concrete verdure, doing the office of an open eye in
a dull face, it could also be approached without derision on a sweet
summer morning when it made a lapping sound and reflected candidly
various things that were probably finer than itself--the sky, the great
trees, the flight of birds. A man of taste, coming back from Rome a
hundred years before, had caused a small ornamental structure to be
raised, from artificial foundations, on its bosom, and had endeavoured
to make this architectural pleasantry as nearly as possible a
reminiscence of the small ruined rotunda which stands on the bank of the
Tiber and is pronounced by _ciceroni_ once sacred to Vesta. It was
circular, roofed with old tiles, surrounded by white columns and
considerably dilapidated. George Dallow had taken an interest in it--it
reminded him not in the least of Rome, but of other things he liked--and
had amused himself with restoring it. "Give me your hand--sit there and
I'll ferry you," Nick said.

Julia complied, placing herself opposite him in the boat; but as he took
up the paddles she declared that she pr