17 MARCH 1923, Page 20

Is concerned with what the author calls " the unreflecting

gaiety of the days before the War." The principal characters are a. baritone of devastating genius and charm, an Italian Contessa, who shoots both him and herself—these are the storm birds—and a young married woman whom everyone combines to protect from being as much compromised by the tragedy as she deserves to be. Hardly a state of society worthy of regret even in these times of austere taxation.