However, when the Barringtons did at last tear themselves from the Riviera, they announced rather disingenuously that they were going to Egypt.

“They are too happy,” Lady Everington said to Laking a few days later, “and they know nothing.  I am afraid there will be trouble.”

“Oh, Lady Georgie,” he replied, “I have never known you to be a prophetess of gloom.  I would have thought the auspices were most fortunate.”

“They ought to quarrel more than they do,” Lady Everington complained.  “She ought to contradict him more than she does.  There must be a volcanic element in marriage.  It is a sign of trouble coming when the fires are quiet.”

“But they have got plenty of money,” expostulated Aubrey, whose troubles were invariably connected with his banking account, “and they are very fond of each other.  Where is the trouble to come from?”

“Trouble is on the lookout for all of us, Aubrey,” said his companion, “it is no good flying from it, even.  The only thing to do is to look it in the face and laugh at it; then it gets annoyed sometimes, and goes away.  But those two poor dears are sailing into the middle of it, and they don’t even know how to laugh yet.”

“You think that Egypt is hopelessly demoralising.  Thousands of people go there and come safely home, almost all, in fact, except Robert Hichens’s heroines.”

“Oh no, not in Egypt,” said Lady Everington; “Egypt is only a stepping-stone.  They are going to Japan.”

“Well, certainly Japan is harmless enough.  There is nobody there worth flirting with except us at the Embassies, and we generally have our hands full.  As for the visitors, they are always under the influence of Cook’s tickets and Japanese guides.”

“Aubrey dear, you think that trouble can only come from flirting or money.”

“I know that those two preoccupations are an abundant source of trouble.”

“What do you think of Mrs. Barrington?” asked her Ladyship, appearing to change the subject.

“Oh, a very sweet little thing.”

“Like your lady friends in Tokyo, the Japanese ones, I mean?”

“Not in the least.  Japanese ladies look very picturesque, but they are as dull as dolls.  They sidle along in the wake of their husbands, and don’t expect to be spoken to.”

“And have you no more intimate experience?” asked Lady Everington.  “Really, Aubrey, you have not been living up to your reputation.”

“Well, Lady Georgie,” the young man proceeded, gazing at his polished boots with a well-assumed air of embarrassment, “since I know that you are one of the enlightened ones, I will confess to you that I did keep a little establishment a la Pierre Loti.  My Japanese teacher thought it would be a good way of improving my knowledge of the local idiom; and this knowledge meant an extra hundred pounds to me for interpreter’s allowance, as it is called.  I thought, too, that it would be a relief