all, but a makeshift—­the modest best she could arrange under the circumstances.  But he—­Sir Charles—­must not refuse.  It would give her such intense pleasure to have the darling child make her official debut under her, Henrietta’s, auspices.  The hours would of necessity be early, to avoid disturbance of the non-dancing residents in the hotel.  But, if the entertainment were bound to end at midnight, it could begin at a proportionately unfashionable hour.  For once table d’hote might surely be timed for six o’clock; and the dining-room—­since it offered larger space than any other apartment—­be cleared, aired, and ready for dancing by a quarter-past eight.—­Henrietta unquestionably had a way with her; proprietors, managers, servants alike hastening obedient to her cajoling nod.—­Thanks to importations by road and rail, from other coast resorts, she reckoned to muster sixteen to twenty couples.—­A rubbishing apology at best, in the matter of a “coming out” ball, for a girl of Damaris’ position and deserts—­no one could know that better than she, Henrietta, herself did!

“A poor thing but mine own,” she quoted, when enlarging upon the scheme to Charles Verity.  “But as at Easter we are fated to scatter, I suppose, and go our several roads with small promise of reunion, you must really be gracious, dear friend, and, for old sake’s sake, give in to my desires.  It’s my last chance, for heaven knows how long—­not impossibly for ever.”

Carteret happened to be present during the above conversation.  Had he not, it may be doubted whether it would ever have taken place—­with this dash of affecting reminiscence in any case.  Allusions to a common past were barred for excellent reasons, as between these two persons, save strictly in public.  Even so it struck him as a humorous piece of audacity on the lady’s part.  Her effrontery touched on the colossal!  But it succeeded, always had done so.—­In his judgment of Henrietta, Carteret never failed to remember, being compact of chivalry and of truthfulness, that he had once on a time been a good half in love with her himself.—­All the same he was not sure her close association with Damaris met with his approval.

That association had grown, Jonah’s gourd-like, during the last six weeks, until, as he rather uneasily noted, the two were hardly ever apart.  Luncheons, teas, picnics, excursions, succeeded one another.  Afternoons of tennis in the hotel grounds, the athletic gregarious Binning and his two pupils, Peregrine Ditton and Harry Ellice in attendance.  Sometimes the latter’s sister, Mary Ellice, joined the company—­when Lady Hermione condescended to spare her—­or the long-backed Miss Maud Callowgas.  Afternoons of reading and song, too, supplied by Marshall Wace.—­Carteret felt self-reproachful, yet knew his charity too often threatened to stop short of the young man Wace—­though the beggar had a voice to draw tears from a stone, plague him!—­At intervals, all-day expeditions were undertaken to Monte Carlo, or shopping raids upon Cannes or Nice.