ictoire, on the Route de Frejus."

She was murmuring something to the effect that she would go at once,
when he said in a tone that struck her as significant:

"It's very pleasant at Cannes--more so than here."

She didn't resent this, perhaps because her need was too great. Besides,
there was something about him--it might have been the tenderness of a
man who himself knew what suffering was--that put him outside the region
of resentments. She only said: "Indeed? Why?"

"You'll see that when you go. For one thing, it's further removed from
the atmosphere that comes up to us from--down there." He pointed toward
Monte Carlo. "In that way it's--healthier."

She knew that as she thanked him and passed on she smiled, and that she
did so from lightness of heart. Certainly her heart was less heavy. It
was less heavy because of his kindness, because of this indication that
some one cared what became of her. She felt so forsaken that almost
anybody's kindness would have had the same effect, almost anybody's care
for her welfare; and so she came to respond to the appeal of Noel
Ordway.

He sat beside her the first Sunday she lunched at the Villa Victoire.
The Misses Partridge "knew every one." Of few people in either
hemisphere could the expression be used with no more exaggeration.
Possessing little in the way of means, less in that of accomplishments,
and nothing at all in the line of looks, they had formed a vast circle
of acquaintance, chiefly by a hearty, unaffected interest in each
individual personality. No one, however unimportant, was ever forgotten
by them. Miss Rosamond, who looked like a coachman, spent her time in
correspondence, rounding up absent friends; Miss Gladys, who was thin
and angular, coursed whatever neighborhood they happened to be in,
getting the nice people to come and see them. For reasons not always
clear to the superficial the nice people came and sent others. No two
ladies ever received so many letters of introduction, or wrote them.
Their Sunday luncheons at Cannes were as famous as their Sunday dinners
in New York.

In New York Edith had fought shy of them, mainly because Chip didn't do
them justice. He spoke of them flippantly as "those two old flyaways,"
and would never go to their house. For this reason she herself went
rarely, though when she did she got a perception of broad social
inclusiveness which Chip could hardly appreciate. It was the only house
she knew of in which there were