t calm women--they like slighter creatures."

"The great calm whales," the Duchess laughed, "swallow the little
fishes."

"Oh my dear," Mrs. Brook returned, "Harold can be tasted, if you like--"

"If _I_ like?" the Duchess parenthetically jeered. "Thank you, love!"

"But he can't, I think, be eaten. It all works out," Mrs. Brook
expounded, "to the highest end. If Lady Fanny's amused she'll be quiet."

"Bless me," cried the Duchess, "of all the immoral speeches--! I put it
to you, Longdon. Does she mean"--she appealed to their friend--"that if
she commits murder she won't commit anything else?"

"Oh it won't be murder," said Mrs. Brook. "I mean that if Harold, in one
way and another, keeps her along, she won't get off."

"Off where?" Mr. Longdon risked.

Vanderbank immediately informed him. "To one of the smaller Italian
towns. Don't you know?"

"Oh yes. Like--who is it? I forget."

"Anna Karenine? You know about Anna?"

"Nanda," said the Duchess, "has told him. But I thought," she went on to
Mrs. Brook, "that Lady Fanny, by this time, MUST have gone."

"Petherton then," Mrs. Brook returned, "doesn't keep you au courant?"

The Duchess blandly wondered. "I seem to remember he had positively said
so. And that she had come back."

"Because this looks so like a fresh start? No. WE know. You assume
besides," Mrs. Brook asked, "that Mr. Cashmore would have received her
again?"

The Duchess fixed a little that gentleman and his actual companion.
"What will you have? He mightn't have noticed."

"Oh you're out of step, Duchess," Vanderbank said. "We used all to march
abreast, but we're falling to pieces. It's all, saving your presence,
Mitchy's marriage."

"Ah," Mrs. Brook concurred, "how thoroughly I feel that! Oh I knew. The
spell's broken; the harp has lost a string. We're not the same thing.
HE'S not the same thing."

"Frankly, my dear," the Duchess answered, "I don't think that you
personally are either."

"Oh as for that--which is what matters least--we shall perhaps see."
With which Mrs. Brook turned again to Mr. Longdon. "I haven't explained
to you what I meant just now. We want Nanda."

Mr. Longdon stared. "At home again?"

"In her little old nook. You must give her back."

"Do you mean altogether?"

"Ah that will be for you in a manner to arrange. But you've had her
practically these five months, and with no desire to be unreasonable we
yet have our natural feelings."

This interchange, to