Henrietta mused, raising one hand and fingering the lace at her throat as seeking to loosen it.  Damaris watched fascinated, in a way troubled, by her extreme prettiness.  Every point, every detail was so engagingly complete.

“You are like Sir Charles still; but I see something which is not him—­the personal equation, I suppose, developing in you, the element which is individual, exclusively your own and yourself.  I should enjoy exploring that.”

She looked at Damaris very brightly for an instant, then looked down.

“I want to hear more about Sir Charles,” she said.  “Of all the distinguished men I have been fortunate enough to know, who—­who have let me be their friend, no one has ever interested me more than he.  We have known one another ever since I was a girl and his career meant so much to me.  I followed it closely, rejoiced in his promotion, his successes; felt indignant—­and said so—­when he met with adverse criticism.  I am speaking of his Indian career.  When he accepted that Afghan command, it made a break.  We lost touch, which I regretted immensely.  From that time onward I only knew what any and everybody might know from the newspapers—­except occasionally when I happened to meet Colonel Carteret.”

The explanation was lengthy, laboured, not altogether spontaneous.  Damaris vaguely mystified by it made no comment.  Henrietta raised her head, glancing round from under lowered eyelids.

“You appreciate the ever-faithful Carteret?” she asked, an edge of eagerness in her voice.

“The dear ‘man with the blue eyes?’ Of course I love him, we both love him almost better than anybody in the world,” Damaris warmly declared.

“And he manifestly returns your affection.  But, dearest child, why ‘almost.’  Is that reservation intentional or merely accidental?”

Then seeing the girl’s colour rise.

“Perhaps it’s hardly a fair question.  Forgive me.  I forgot how long it is since we met, forgot I’m not, after all, talking to the precious little downy owl, who had no more serious secrets than such as might concern her large family of dolls.”

“I am not sure the ‘almost’ was quite true.”  Damaris put in hastily, her cheeks more than ever aflame.

“Yes it was, most delicious child—­I protest it was.  And I’m not sure I’m altogether sorry.”

Slightly, daintily, she kissed the flaming cheek.

“But I do love Colonel Carteret,” Damaris repeated, with much wide-eyed earnestness.  “I trust him and depend on him as I do on nobody else.”

“‘Almost’ nobody else?”

Damaris shook her head.  She felt a wee bit disappointed in Henrietta.  This persistence displeased her as trivial, as lacking in perfection of breeding and taste.

“Quite nobody,” she said.  And without permitting time for rejoinder launched forth into the subject of the book on the campaigns of Shere Ali, which, as she explained, had been undertaken at Carteret’s suggestion and with such encouraging result.  She waxed eloquent regarding the progress of the volume and its high literary worth.