For a brief interval¹ it seemed probable that the dispersal of the party would be even more thorough than Mrs. Rylands and Lady Catherine had contemplated². Mr. Sempack, after what would appear to have been a troubled night, proclaimed his intention of going back to Nice forthwith to get some books and carry them off with him to Corsica.

His explanations lacked lucidity³. He was not a good enough liar⁴ to invent a valid⁵ reason for going to Corsica. Lady Catherine, very subtly, left him to Mrs. Rylands, who summoned him secretly to the little sitting-room⁶ next her bedroom and received him in a beautiful flowery Chinese silk wrapper, and told him how she had looked forward to talking to him when the others had gone. She reduced him to the avowal⁷ that his motive⁸ in going was “mere restlessness,” contrived⁹ to convert the Corsican project into a few days’ walking from some centre upon the Route des Alpes, and made him promise to come back so soon as he had walked himself calm.

Neither she nor he made the slightest attempt to account for his restlessness. She accepted it as a matter of course. So with a slightly baffled air, carrying a knapsack and a small valise and leaving his more serious luggage as it were in pawn¹⁰, Mr. Sempack took the local train for Nice.

Mr. Plantagenet-Buchan was also affected¹¹ by the general dislodgment. He discovered or invented a friend — Mrs. Rylands was in doubt which — a friend he had not met for years at that jolly hotel with the convex landlord at Torre Pellice up above Turin, and remained oscillating on the point of departure for some days — without actually going, keeping the friend in reserve.

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