More than fifteen months had elapsed since we had reluctantly seen her into the boat-train at Euston and wished her a safe journey to her American home.  At the time, with an uneasiness bred of experience, I had wondered whether our friendship was to survive the battery of time and distance, or whether it was destined to slip into a decline and so, presently, out of our lives, fainting and painless.  Touch, however, had been maintained by a fitful correspondence, and constant references to Miss Feste’s promised visit to White Ladies—­a consummation which we one and all desired—­were made for what they were worth.  Finally my sister sat down and issued a desperate summons.  “My dear, don’t keep us waiting any longer.  Arrive in August and stay for six months.  If you don’t, we shall begin to believe what we already suspect—­that we live too far away.”  The thrust went home.  Within a month the invitation had been accepted, with the direct result that here were Jill and I, at six o’clock of a pleasant August evening, standing upon a quay at Southampton, while the Rolls waited patiently, with Fitch at her wheel, a stone’s throw away, ready to rush our guest and ourselves over the odd fifteen miles that lay between the port and White Ladies.

With us in the car we could take the inevitable cabin trunk and dressing-case.  Adele’s heavy baggage was to be consigned to the care of Fitch, who would bring it by rail the same evening to Mockery Dale, the little wayside station which served five villages and our own among them.

Nobody from the quay was allowed to board the liner, and none of the passengers were allowed to disembark, until the baggage had been off-loaded.  For the best part, therefore, of an hour and a half Jill and I hovered under the shadow of the tall ship, walking self-consciously up and down, or standing looking up at the promenade deck with, so far as I was concerned, an impotently fatuous air and, occasionally, the meretricious leer usually reserved for the photographer’s studio.

At last—­

“If they don’t let them off soon,” I announced, “I shall break down.  The strain of being cordial with somebody who’s in sight, but out of earshot, is becoming unbearable.  Let’s go and have a breather behind the hutment.”  And I indicated an erection which looked like a ticket-office that had been thrown together during the Crimean War.

But Jill was inexorable.

“It can’t be long now,” she argued, “and if we go away——­There!” She seized my arm with a triumphant clutch.  “Look!  They’re beginning to get off.”

It was true.  One by one the vanguard of passengers was already straggling laden on to the high gangway.  I strained my eyes for a glimpse of the slight blue figure, which had left the taffrail and was presumably imprisoned in the press which could be observed welling out of a doorway upon the main deck....