Chapter 12 - Page 2

this seat for a moment, Mr. Lansing? Thank
you. No, I am not here as an advance guard--though I believe
the Ibis is due some time to-morrow." He cleared his throat,
wiped his eyeglasses on a silk handkerchief, replaced them on
his nose, and went on solemnly: "Perhaps, to clear up any
possible misunderstanding, I ought to say that I am no longer in
the employ of Mr. Hicks."

Lansing glanced at him sympathetically. It was clear that he
suffered horribly in imparting this information, though his
compact face did not lend itself to any dramatic display of
emotion.

"Really," Nick smiled, and then ventured: "I hope it's not
owing to conscientious objections to Tiepolo?"

Mr. Buttles's blush became a smouldering agony. "Ah, Miss Hicks
mentioned to you ... told you ...? No, Mr. Lansing. I am
principled against the effete art of Tiepolo, and of all his
contemporaries, I confess; but if Miss Hicks chooses to
surrender herself momentarily to the unwholesome spell of the
Italian decadence it is not for me to protest or to criticize.
Her intellectual and aesthetic range so far exceeds my humble
capacity that it would be ridiculous, unbecoming ...."

He broke off, and once more wiped a faint moisture from his
eyeglasses. It was evident that he was suffering from a
distress which he longed and yet dreaded to communicate. But
Nick made no farther effort to bridge the gulf of his own
preoccupations; and Mr. Buttles, after an expectant pause, went
on: "If you see me here to-day it is only because, after a
somewhat abrupt departure, I find myself unable to take leave of
our friends without a last look at the Ibis--the scene of so
many stimulating hours. But I must beg you," he added
earnestly, "should you see Miss Hicks--or any other member of
the party--to make no allusion to my presence in Genoa. I
wish," said Mr. Buttles with simplicity, "to preserve the
strictest incognito."

Lansing glanced at him kindly. "Oh, but--isn't that a little
unfriendly?"

"No other course is possible, Mr. Lansing," said the ex-
secretary, "and I commit myself to your discretion. The truth
is, if I am here it is not to look once more at the Ibis, but at
Miss Hicks: once only. You will understand me, and appreciate
what I am suffering."

He bowed again, and trotted away on his small, tightly-booted
feet; pausing on the threshold to say: "From the first it was
hopeless," before he disappeared through the glass doors.

A gleam of commiseration flashed through Nick's mind: there was
something quaintly poignant in the sight of the brisk and
efficient Mr. Buttles reduced to a limp image of unrequited
passion. And what a painful surprise to the Hickses to be thus
suddenly