“My precious child, has it never occurred to you Colonel Carteret may stay on, not against has will, but very much with it?  Or occurred to you, further, not only that the pleasures of your father’s society are by no means to be despised; but that you yourself are a rather remarkable product—­as quaintly engagingly clever, as you are—­well—­shall we say—­handsome, Damaris?”

“I am deputed to enquire whether you propose to take tea indoors, Miss Verity, or have it brought to you here; and, in the latter case, whether we have leave to join you?”

The speaker, Marshall Wace—­a young man of about thirty years of age—­may be described as soft in make, in colouring slightly hectic, in manner a subtle cross between the theatrical and the parsonic.  Which, let it be added, is by no means to condemn him wholesale, laugh him off the stage or out of the pulpit.  In certain circles, indeed, these traits, this blend, won for him unstinted sympathy and approval.  He possessed talents in plenty, and these of an order peculiarly attractive to the amateur because tentative rather than commanding.  Among his intimates he was seen and spoken of as one cloaked with the pathos of thwarted aspirations.  Better health, less meagre private means and a backing of influence, what might he not have done?  His star might have flamed to the zenith!  Meanwhile it was a privilege to help him, to such extent as his extreme delicacy of feeling permitted.  That it really permitted a good deal, one way or another, displaying considerable docility under the infliction of benefits, would have been coarse to perceive and unpardonably brutal to mention.—­Such, anyhow, was the opinion held by his cousin, General Frayling, at whose expense he now enjoyed a recuperative sojourn upon the French Riviera.  Some people, in short, have a gift of imposing themselves, and Marshall Wace may be counted among that conveniently endowed band.

He imposed himself now upon one at least of his hearers.  For, though the address might seem studied, the voice delivering it was agreeable, causing Damaris, for the first time, consciously to notice this member of Mrs. Frayling’s retinue.  She felt amiably disposed towards him since his intrusion closed a conversation causing her no little disturbance of mind.  Henrietta’s last speech, in particular, set her nerves tingling with most conflicting emotions.  If Henrietta so praised her that praise must be deserved, for who could be better qualified to give judgment on such a subject than the perfectly equipped Henrietta?  Yet she shrank in distaste, touched in her maiden modesty and pride, from so frank an exposition of her own charms.  It made her feel unclothed, stripped in the market-place—­so to speak—­and shamed.  Secretly she had always hoped she was pretty rather than plain.  She loved beauty and therefore naturally desired to possess it.  But to have the fact of that possession thus baldly stated was another matter.  It made her feel unnatural,