going home, and a new consul had not yet been sent out to remove him. On
what she called her well days Mrs. Lander went to visit him, and she did
not mind his being in his shirt-sleeves, in the bit of garden where she
commonly found him, with his collar and cravat off, and clouded in his
own smoke; when she was sick she sent for him, to visit her. He made
excuses as often as she could, and if he saw Mrs. Lander's gondola
coming down the Grand Canal to his house he hurried on his cast
clothing, and escaped to the Piazza, at whatever discomfort and risk
from the heat.

"I don't know how you stand it, Miss Claxon," he complained to
Clementina, as soon as he learned that she was not a blood relation of
Mrs. Lander's, and divined that she had her own reservations concerning
her. "But that woman will be the death of me if she keeps this up. What
does she think I'm here for? If this goes on much longer I'll resign.
The salary won't begin to pay for it. What am I going to do? I don't
want to hurt her feelings, or not to help her; but I know ten times as
much about Mrs. Lander's liver as I do about my own, now."

He treated Clementina as a person of mature judgment and a sage
discretion, and he accepted what comfort she could offer him when she
explained that it was everything for Mrs. Lander to have him to talk
with. "She gets tied of talking to me," she urged, "and there's nobody
else, now."

"Why don't she hire a valet de place, and talk to him? I'd hire one
myself for her. It would be a good deal cheaper for me. It's as much as
I can do to stand this weather as it is."

The vice-consul laughed forlornly in his exasperation, but he agreed
with Clementina when she said, in further excuse, that Mrs. Lander was
really very sick. He pushed back his hat, and scratched his head with a
grimace.

"Of course, we've got to remember she's sick, and I shall need a little
sympathy myself if she keeps on at me this way. I believe I'll tell
her about my liver next time, and see how she likes it. Look here, Miss
Claxon! Couldn't we get her off to some of those German watering places
that are good for her complaints? I believe it would be the best thing
for her--not to mention me."

Mrs. Lander was moved by the suggestion which he made in person
afterwards; it appealed to her old nomadic instinct; but when the consul
was gone she gave it up. "We couldn't git the'e, Clementina. I got to
stay he'e till I git up my stren'th. I suppose y