So much must be said in extenuation of our nymph-like damsel’s apparent subjection to levity—­a declension which, in the sequel and in certain quarters, went neither unnoticed nor undeplored.  But to labour this point is to forestall history.  Immediately her change of attitude announced its existence innocently enough.  For the sacramental meal once consumed, and courteous parting words bestowed upon the valiant soldier broken in his country’s wars, the coachman mounted the box, and gathering up the reins, with “Ho he’s” and “ho la’s,” swung his horses half round the level and plunged them over the hill-side, along a steep woodland track, leading by serpentine twists and curves down to join the Corniche Road—­a blonde ribbon rimming the indentations of the five-mile distant coast.

Damaris steadied herself well back on the seat of the carriage as it swayed and bumped over ruts and tree-roots to the lively menace of its springs.  She studiously kept her face turned towards her companion, a myrtle-green shoulder as studiously turned towards the view.  For she found it wiser not even to glance in that direction, lest rebellious regrets and longings should leap on her across the violet-blotted abyss from out those shining Alpine citadels.  While to strengthen herself in allegiance to Mrs. Frayling and to, what may be called, the lighter side, she pushed one hand into that lady’s muff and coaxed the slender pointed-fingers hiding in the comfortable pussy-warmth within.

“Tell me stories, Henrietta, please,” she entreated, “about all the people whom you’ve asked to your party on Thursday.  Dress them up for me and put them through their paces, so that I may know who they all are when I see them and make no mistakes, but behave to them just as you would wish me to.”

“Gradate your attentions and not pet the wrong ones?”

Mrs. Frayling gave gentle squeeze for squeeze in the pussy-warmth, laughing a trifle impishly.

“You sinful child,” she said—­“Gracious, what jolts—­my spine will soon be driven through the top of my skull at this rate!—­Yes, sinful in tempting me to gibbet my acquaintances for your amusement.”

“But why gibbet them?  Aren’t they nice, don’t you care for them?”

“Prodigiously, of course.  Yet would you find it in the least interesting or illuminating if I indexed their modest virtues only?”

“I think the old soldier found it both interesting and illuminating when you indexed my father’s virtues just now.”

“Sir Charles’s virtues hardly come under the head of modest ones,” Mrs. Frayling threw off almost sharply.  “Give me someone as well worth acclaiming and I’ll shout with the best!  But you scarcely quote your father as among the average, do you?—­The people whom you’ll meet on Thursday compared to him, I’m afraid, are as molehills to the mountains yonder.  If I described them by their amiable qualities alone they’d be as indistinguishable and as insipid as a row of