ill. But at this time they developed a new touchiness; possibly Lent was

partly accountable. Tommy wrangled with his editor, disputed truculently with the good-tempered Luli, assumed a mien of impertinent defiance towards his more urgent creditors, and snapped at Betty, who snapped back, and then they would stammer rude and unpleasant comments on each other for a minute or two--it took them longer to quarrel than it takes people who can fling their remarks unhaltingly straight from the lips--until one or other was ashamed and said:

'D-dry up.'

They quarrelled once about _Marchese Peppino_. Betty referred to it to Warren Venables, who, as usual, did not pursue the subject with enthusiasm. When Venables had left them, Tommy, sitting on the table with his hands in his pockets, looked down at his sister rather moodily.

'Wish you'd let my shop alone, Betty. Venables doesn't care a hang about it--can't you see?'

The surprise in Betty's melancholy eyes testified to the rarity of the ill-tempered tone; particularly it was rare from one of them to the other.

'Well--what does it matter, though?'

Tommy was frowning.

'It does. It bores him to hear about it. It doesn't amuse him; he doesn't think it's funny--and it's not particularly--and w-what's the good of making bores of ourselves?'

Betty regarded him thoughtfully.

'I don't think he's so easily bored as all that, you know.'

Tommy remained gloomy.

A curious element had come, just of late, into his relations with Venables--the element of embarrassment. How it began he could not have said, nor whence it sprang. It was unfortunate, as they saw so extremely much of Venables. More and more Tommy left him to Betty, refusing to make a third in their expeditions and amusements. Yet he liked Venables; he liked him as much as he had liked him at first, when the meeting face to face had carried him back curiously to the old days of school hero-worship. Now, for the last few weeks, he had become growingly silent in his presence; the difficulty of conversation made him rather angry; it was a difficulty he was unused to, and he could not account for it. It oppressed him, too, now, in Miss Varley's presence; the achievement of intimacy did not progress. Tommy supposed it might have something to do with Lent; Lent often affected one's spirits unfavourably. Life in general, in fact, was rather a bore. Tommy told Betty so.

'I'm tired of being overworked,' he remarked. 'I wish I wasn't a newspaper man. I wish I wrote novels, like Mrs. Venables. Let's write a novel, Betty. I wish I had a motor-car to play with, like Venables. I wish we were older, Betty--old enough to go home to Santa Caterina and live in peace on our hard-won earnings. Let's chuck it and go. We've got enough, if we leave our debts behind us, and eat like moderate Christians, and are out of reach of shops. What's the good of fooling here, and never having enough to live on, and--and----'

His stammer or his disgust choked the rest of his grievances from his lips.

Betty looked sympathetic.

'You'll feel better in the morning,' she said, 'if it's a fine day.'

She was standing by the open window, leaning out into the soft darkness. From the narrow steep alley below, and from the wide lit thoroughfare into which it ran, the cheerful revel of Naples at night hummed up.

'Let's come out,' said Betty, 'into the streets.'

And the two seekers after a quiet life strolled through the city together. They returned home a little after midnight, having made a very heroic and quite successful fight against care.