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truth about you,” Cousin Marion said virtuously. “I’ve merely said family reasons are taking you home.”
    “Family!” Lavinia said bitterly. Could Cousin Marion be so stupid as not to realize that her only family, darling Robin, was in prison for seven years?
    “You will have to invent an elderly aunt,” Cousin Marion said briskly. “The Monks are leaving first thing in the morning. Mrs. Monk will be sending for you sometime this afternoon, when she feels able to interview you.”
    Another one of those enjoyed imaginary illness, Lavinia thought drearily. She supposed she must do her best. And to give Cousin Marion her due, she seemed a little sorry that she was going.
    “Why did you have to be so foolish?” she asked. “Perhaps you didn’t mean to be dishonest, but you will ruin your life if you go on doing these impetuous things. I suppose it’s your nature. Frankly, I believe you attract trouble.”
    Lavinia nodded, too dispirited to reply or defend herself. And anyway, what Cousin Marion said was true. Trouble did pursue her.
    Soon after lunch the summons came. The small page, who could speak only a few English words, managed to indicate that the Signorina was wanted in the suite on the ground floor.
    “Now look modest,” Cousin Marion called after her. “Mrs. Monk particularly wanted to know if you were a quiet modest person. I told a lie. I felt that under the special circumstances the Almighty would forgive me.”
    She supposed she could keep her eyes downcast, but she couldn’t keep the distressed color out of her cheeks. Lavinia followed the agile page boy down the stairs and along a corridor until he stopped and tapped at one of the handsome carved doors. The Monks were obviously affluent people. This looked like the entrance to a palatial suite.
    A woman’s voice called faintly but imperiously, “Come in,” and the boy stood aside to allow Lavinia to enter.
    The first person she saw was Flora in her wheelchair, her little old woman face wearing a triumphant expression. A boy with a mop of black curls was trailing a kite about the room, intent on his game and ignoring everyone else. Behind Flora stood Eliza, the elderly maid, her mouth tucked in disapprovingly. Almost reluctantly Lavinia looked for the other occupants of the room. The woman with the imperious voice lay on a couch, her head with its mass of night-black hair resting on a fragile white hand, a tea gown with frothing lace ruffles draped becomingly about her. Flora’s father stood at one of the windows with its opaque circled Venetian glass. He was framed by the deep embrasure, looking, in that setting, with his faint melancholy, like a portrait of a Venetian nobleman.
    “Miss Hurst—” Flora began, and was instantly silenced by her mother in that weary but supremely arrogant voice.
    “You look surprised, Miss Hurst. Didn’t the boy explain that my husband and I wanted to see you?”
    “No, he didn’t. That is—” Lavinia was vividly aware of Daniel Meryon’s eyes on her. He thought she was occupied only in looking at his wife, and was giving her an amused yet curiously tender and disarming look.
    “He couldn’t speak English, Mamma,” Flora pointed out “No wonder Miss Hurst is confused.”
    “Silence, miss. The first thing Miss Hurst will have to do—that is, if I decide to engage her—is to teach you manners.”
    The little boy with the kite raced around the room again, then stopped in front of Lavinia and regarded her critically.
    “You’re to be Flora’s companion, but you won’t like it. She’s a tyrant. Isn’t she, Eliza?”
    “Now, Master Edward—”
    “Teddy, come here, and be quiet!” said his mother, in her dying-away voice. “You know my poor head can’t stand noise, darling.”
    “I think it’s time Miss Hurst was told what we want of her before we scare her away completely,” Daniel put in. He had seemed so detached from the scene that his sudden voice startled even Edward into