go, in the person
of the partner who represented them, and they had each spring a
controversy vividly resembling a quarrel, but which was really not a
quarrel, because the Dear knew that if it were not for the children
Lindora would only be too glad never to leave their own house winter or
summer, but just to stick there, year out and year in. Then, at least,
she could look a little after Florindo, who had lived so much at the
club that he had fairly forgotten he _had_ a wife and children. The
trouble was all with Florindo, anyway; he cared more for his business
than his family, much; if he did not, he could have managed somehow to
spend the summers with them. Other men did it, and ran down once a
month, or once a fortnight, to put things in shape, and then came back.

Sleeping on a midnight view of her hard case, Lindora woke one morning
with an inspiration; it might not be too much to call it a revelation.
She wondered at herself, she was ashamed of herself, for not having
thought of it before. Europe, of course, was the only solution. Once in
Europe, you need not worry about where to go, for you could go anywhere.
Europe was everywhere, and you had your choice of the Swiss mountains,
where every breath made another person of you, or the Italian lakes with
their glorious scenery, or the English lakes with their literary
associations, or Scheveningen and all Holland, or Etretat, or Ostend, or
any of those thousands of German baths where you could get over whatever
you had, and the children could pick up languages with tutors, and the
life was so amusing. Going to Europe was excuse enough in itself for
Florindo to leave his business, and, if he could not be gone more than
one summer, he could place her and the children out there till their
health and education were completed, and they could all return home
when it was time for the girls to think of coming out and the boys of
going to college.

Florindo, as she expected, had not a reasonable word to say against a
scheme that must commend itself to any reasonable man. In fact, he
scarcely opposed it. He said he had begun to feel a little run down, and
he had just been going to propose Europe himself as the true solution.
She gladly gave him credit for the idea, and said he had the most
inventive mind she ever heard of. She agreed without a murmur to the
particular German baths which the doctor said would be best for him,
because she just knew that the waters would be goo