The Seven Sleepers

IT ALL STARTED with the loss of my luggage.

I was returning home to England from a trip to the Tuscan towns by way of the Riviera, and I had registered my trunk to Genoa. On arriving at that city, however, I discovered, after much difficult enquiry, in the course of which I was assured that Italy, thanks to Signer Mussolini, was a great and glorious country which would shortly be undisputed mistress of the Mediterranean and the most efficient nation in Europe, that my effects had been despatched to Geneva. It was pointed out, for my consolation, that the difference between "Geneva" and "Ginevra" was almost negligible.

Fortunately I was in no great need of consolation. I was, in fact, delighted with the discovery of my loss. It was an omen. All roads, it seemed, were leading me to Beatrice.

Beatrice Harvel, whom I had met in London during the War, was now on the staff of the League of Nations. She had been for two years in Geneva and I had not seen her during all that time. I had parted with her in the conviction that a penniless officer newly demobilised, as I then was, not yet broken to the paths of commerce, was in no position to lay his name and absence of fortune at her feet. During the last few days, however, my position and prospects had changed remarkably for the better. My Uncle James, calling me into his office some three weeks previously, had announced his immediate intention of making me a partner in his business, and had given me to understand that I might regard myself as his heir.