he mention of his name, which must, however,
have been unheard by him, the Prince at that moment turned round and
looked for a moment towards them. He shot a quick glance at Lady Carey.
Almost at once she rose from her chair and came across to them.

"The Prince's watch-dog," Lucille murmured. "Hateful woman! She is bound
hand and foot to him, and yet--"

Her eyes met his, and he laughed.

"Really," he said, "you and I in our old age might be hero and heroine
of a little romance--the undesiring objects of a hopeless affection!"

Lady Carey sank into a low chair by their side. "You two," she said,
with a slow, malicious smile, "are a pattern to this wicked world. Don't
you know that such fidelity is positively sinful, and after three years
in such a country too?"

"It is the approach of senility," Mr. Sabin answered her. "I am an old
man, Lady Muriel!"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"You are like Ulysses," she said. "The gods, or rather the goddesses,
have helped you towards immortality."

"It is," Mr. Sabin answered, "the most delicious piece of flattery I
have ever heard."

"Calypso," she murmured, nodding towards Lucille, "is by your side."

"Really," Mr. Sabin interrupted, "I must protest. Lucille and I
were married by a most respectable Episcopalian clergyman. We have
documentary evidence. Besides, if Lucille is Calypso, what about
Penelope?"

Lady Carey smiled thoughtfully.

"I have always thought," she said, "that Penelope was a myth. In your
case I should say that Penelope represents a return to sanity--to the
ordinary ways of life."

Mr. Sabin and Lucille exchanged swift glances. He raised his eyebrows.

"Our little idyll," he said, "seems to be the sport and buffet of
every one. You forget that I am of the old world. I do not understand
modernity."

"Ulysses," she answered, "was of the old world, yet he was a wanderer in
more senses of the word than one. And there have been times--"

Her eyes sought his. He ignored absolutely the subtlety of meaning which
lurked beneath the heavy drooping eyelids.

"One travels through life," he answered, "by devious paths, and a little
wandering in the flower-gardens by the way is the lot of every one.
But when the journey is over, one's taste for wandering has gone--well,
Ulysses finished his days at the hearth of Penelope."

She rose and walked away. Mr. Sabin sat still and watched her as though
listening to the soft sweep of her gown upon the carpet.