Eileen laughed, calmly smoothing out her skirt over her slim ankles; then she closed the book, sat up, and looked happily at Selwyn.

“Fogy and Bas-bleu,” she repeated.  “But it is fascinating, isn’t it?—­even if my hair is across my ears and you sit that chair like a polo player!  Nina, dearest, what is your mature opinion concerning the tomoya and the Buddhist cross?”

“I know more about a tomboy-a than a tomoya, my saucy friend,” observed Nina, surveying her with disapproval—­“and I can be as cross about it as any Buddhist, too.  You are, to express it as pleasantly as possible, a sight!  Child, what on earth have you been doing?  There are two smears on your cheeks!”

“I’ve been crying,” said the girl, with an amused sidelong flutter of her lids toward Selwyn.

“Crying!” repeated Nina incredulously.  Then, disarmed by the serene frankness of the girl, she added:  “A blue-stocking is bad enough, but a grimy one is impossible. Allons!  Vite!” she insisted, driving Eileen before her; “the country is demoralising you.  Philip, we’re dining early, so please make your arrangements to conform.  Come, Eileen; have you never before seen Philip Selwyn?”

“I am not sure that I ever have,” she replied, with a curious little smile at Selwyn.  Nina had her by the hand, but she dragged back like a mischievously reluctant child hustled bedward: 

“Good-bye,” she said, stretching out her hand to Selwyn—­“good-bye, my unfortunate fellow fogy!  I go, slumpy, besmudged, but happy; I return, superficially immaculate—­but my stockings will still be blue! . . .  Nina, dear, if you don’t stop dragging me I’ll pick you up in my arms!—­indeed I will—­”

There was a laugh, a smothered cry of protest; and Selwyn was the amused spectator of his sister suddenly seized and lifted into a pair of vigorous young arms, and carried into the house by this tall, laughing girl who, an hour before, had lain there among the cushions, frightened, unconvinced, clinging instinctively to the last gay rags and tatters of the childhood which she feared were to be stripped from her for ever.

It was clear starlight when they were ready to depart.  Austin had arrived unexpectedly, and he, Nina, Eileen, and Selwyn were to drive to Hitherwood House, Lansing and Gerald going in the motor-boat.

There was a brief scene between Drina and Boots—­the former fiercely pointing out the impropriety of a boy like Gerald being invited where she, Drina, was ignored.  But there was no use in Boots offering to remain and comfort her as Drina had to go to bed, anyway; so she kissed him good-bye very tearfully, and generously forgave Gerald; and comforted herself before she retired by putting on one of her mother’s gowns and pinning up her hair and parading before a pier-glass until her nurse announced that her bath was waiting.

* * * * *

The drive to Hitherwood House was a dream of loveliness; under the stars the Bay of Shoals sparkled in the blue darkness set with the gemmed ruby and sapphire and emerald of ships’ lanterns glowing from unseen yachts at anchor.