n, at this moment, were pattern
1918. In _my_ shoes Grandmother would simply scream! And I wouldn't be
at my best in hers. This was the parable which commonsense put to me,
and Mrs. Carstairs cleverly offering no word of advice, I paused no
longer than five minutes before I snapped out, "Yes! The horrid brute
can have the darling place till I get rich."

"How sweet of you to consent so _graciously_, darling!" purred Mrs.
Carstairs. Then we both laughed. After which I fell into her arms, and
cried.

For fear I might change my mind, Mr. Carstairs got me to sign some
dull-looking documents that very day, and the oddness of their being all
ready to hand didn't strike me till the ink was dry.

"Henry had them prepared because he knew how _sensible_ you are at
heart--I mean _at head_," his wife explained. "Indeed, it is a
compliment to your intelligence."

Anyhow, it gave me a wherewithal to throw sops to a whole Zooful of
Cerberuses, and still keep enough to take that flat in the Carstairs'
house in Berkeley Square. Of course to do all this meant leaving Italy
for good and going back to England. But there was little to hold me in
Rome. My inheritance from my husband-of-an-hour could be packed in a
suitcase! Shelagh and her snobs travelled with us. And as soon as they
were demobilized, Roger Fane and James Courtenaye followed, if not us,
at least in our direction.

I don't think that Aladdin's Lamp builders "had anything on" Sir Jim's
(as he himself said), judging by the way the restorations simply flew.
From what I heard of the sums he spent, it would take the shillings of
all England and America as sightseers to put him in pocket. But as Mr.
Carstairs pointed out, that was _his_ business.

Mine was to gird my loins at Lucille's and Redfern's, in order to become
a Brightener. For my pendulum was ticking regularly now. I was no longer
down and out. I was up and in. Elizabeth, Princess di Miramare, was
spoiling for her first job.

CHAPTER III

THUNDERBOLT SIX

Looking back through my twenty-one-and-three-quarter years, I divide my
life, up to date, into thunderbolts.

Thunderbolt One: Death of my Father and Mother.

Thunderbolt Two: Spy Night at the Abbey.

Thunderbolt Three: My Marriage to Paolo di Miramare.

Thunderbolt Four: The "Double Blow."

Thunderbolt Five: Beggary!

Which brings me along the road to Thunderbolt Six.

* * * * *

Mrs.