“Yes, you do and nobody was consulted.  I informed my mother, but she doesn’t seem to resent it.  So I am obliged to.  Besides I don’t like your first name.”

Mrs. Cardross laughed gently over her embroidery; Malcourt, who was reading the stock column in the News, turned and looked curiously at Hamil, then at Shiela.  Then catching Mrs. Carrick’s eye: 

“Portlaw is rather worried over the market,” he said.  “I think he’s going North in a day or two.”

“Why, Louis!” exclaimed Mrs. Cardross; “then you will be going, too, I suppose.”

“His ways are my ways,” nodded Malcourt.  “I’ve been here too long anyway,” he added in a lower voice, folding the paper absently across his knees.  He glanced once more at Shiela, but she had returned to her letter writing.

Everybody spoke of his going in tones of civil regret—­everybody except Shiela, who had not even looked at him.  Cecile’s observations were plainly perfunctory, but she made them nevertheless, for she had begun to take the same feminine interest in Malcourt that everybody was now taking in view of his very pronounced attentions to Virginia Suydam.

All the world may not love a lover, but all the world watches him.  And a great many pairs of bright eyes and many more pairs of faded ones were curiously following the manoeuvres of Louis Malcourt and Virginia Suydam.

Very little of what these two people did escaped the social Argus at Palm Beach—­their promenades on the verandas of the two great hotels, their appearance on the links and tennis-courts together, their daily encounter at the bathing-hour, their inevitable meeting and pairing on lawn, in ballroom, afloat, ashore, wherever young people gathered under the whip of light social obligations or in pursuit of pleasure.

And they were discussed.  She being older than he, and very wealthy, the veranda discussions were not always amiable; but nobody said anything very bitter because Virginia was in a position to be socially respected and the majority of people rather liked Malcourt.  Besides there was just enough whispering concerning his performances at the Club and the company he kept there to pique the friendly curiosity of a number of fashionable young matrons who are always prepossessed in favour of a man at whom convention might possibly one day glance askance.

So everybody at Palm Beach was at least aware of the affair.  Hamil had heard of it from his pretty aunt, and had been thoroughly questioned.  It was very evident that Miss Palliser viewed the proceedings with dismay for she also consulted Wayward, and finally, during the confidential retiring-hour, chose the right moment to extract something definite from Virginia.

But that pale and pretty spinster was too fluently responsive, admitting that perhaps she had been seeing a little too much of Malcourt, protesting it to be accidental, agreeing with Constance Palliser that more discretion should be exercised, and promising it with a short, flushed laugh.