“There seems, indeed, no choice in the matter,” answered the young girl coldly.

“None, unless like those in the admirable play, we elect to pitch our respective camps at different parts of the beach.  But that would be absurd, wouldn’t it?  Besides, I have my punishment—­no light one for Sonia Turgeinov who herself has been accustomed to a little adulation in the past.  I am de trop.”

“De trop?” There was a faint uplifting of the brow. “You should not be altogether that.”

“You mean I should be very friendly with him, my colleague and confidant, n’est ce pas?” Sonia’s dark eyes swept swiftly the proud lovely face.  “In truth he proved an able assistant.”  Her voice was a little mocking.  “What if I should tell you it was he who planned it all —­devised the ways and means?” A statue could, not have been more immovable than Betty Dalrymple.  “Or,” suddenly, “what if I should say quite—­au contraire.”  The girl stirred.  Sonia Turgeinov seemed to ruminate.  “Should I be so forgiving—­after last night?” she murmured.  “It would be inconsistent, wouldn’t it?—­or angelic?  And I am no angel.”

The girl’s lips started to form a question but she did not speak.  Afar, Mr. Heatherbloom’s figure could be seen, almost at the vanishing point.  He was toiling up an incline.  Then the green foliage swallowed him.  Sonia Turgeinov smiled at vacancy.  “Though I do owe him a little,” she went on, half meditative.  “He was kind to me in the park.  He was sorry for me.  Think of it, and without admiring me.  Other men have professed for poor Sonia Turgeinov a little interest or solicitude at divers times and places, but it has always been accompanied with something else.  Is that beyond the understanding of your pure soul, nourished in a hothouse, Mademoiselle?” There was a sudden hard ring of rebellion in her tones.  “Am I handsome?  Your eyes said it not long ago. Ma foi!” Her voice becoming light again.  “It was Parsifal himself who talked with me in the park—­that place for rendezvous and romances.”  Her thoughts leaped over time and space.  “The first light of the sun revealed to you this day the last face you expected to see.  It was as if a bit of miracle, or a little diablerie had happened.  I, too, was in a haze, not so great—­though on the deck the night before I little expected to encounter one I had last seen in chains, a prisoner—­”

“A prisoner—­in chains—­he—­” Betty Dalrymple stared.

“You did not know?  What on earth did you expect?  That the prince would give him the suite de luxe after the beating his excellency received—­”

“The beating?” half-stammered the girl.  “Then the man in the salon who claimed to be a detective was—­”

“What?  He claimed that?” laughed Sonia Turgeinov. “Tres drole!"