The necessary repairs will be begun now. I have bought it
furnished."
"The lovers' furniture?"
"Yes. I shall add a number of my own things, picked up on my wanderings."
"I'll come in August if you'll have me. But I'll give you the season to
think whether you'll have me or whether you won't. I'm a horrible bore in
a house--the lazy man who does nothing and knows a lot. Casa Felice--Casa
Felice. You won't alter the name?"
"Would you advise me to?"
"I don't know. To keep it is to tempt the wrath of the gods, but I should
keep it."
He poured out another whisky-and-soda and suddenly began to curse Miss
Schley.
Sir Donald had spoken to her after Mrs. Wolfstein's lunch.
"She's imitating Lady Holme," said Carey.
"I cannot see the likeness," Sir Donald said. "Miss Schley seems to me
uninteresting and common."
"She is."
"And Lady Holme's personality is, on the contrary; interesting and
uncommon."
"Of course. Pimpernel Schley would be an outrage in that Campo Santo of
yours. And yet there is a likeness, and she's accentuating it every day
she lives."
"Why?"
"Ask the women why they do the cursed things they do do."
"You are a woman-hater?"
"Not I. Didn't I say just now that Casa Felice wanted a woman? But the
devil generally dwells where the angel dwells--cloud and moon together.
Now you want to get on with that poem."
Half London was smiling gently at the resemblance between Lady Holme and
Miss Schley before the former made up her mind to ask the latter to
"something.
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