Hard-pressed, the girl turned to her companion, asking abruptly, inconsequently—­“Is that every one whom you expect on Thursday, Henrietta?”

For some seconds Mrs. Frayling regarded her with a curious lack of intelligent interest or comprehension.  Her thoughts, also, had run forward into the gold of the approaching sunset; and she had some difficulty in overtaking, or restraining them, although they went no further than the Grand Hotel; and—­so to speak—­sat down there all of a piece, on a buff-coloured iron chair, which commanded an uninterrupted view of four gentlemen standing talking before the front door.

“On Thursday?” she repeated—­“Why Thursday?”—­and her usually skilful hands fumbled with the fastening of her sable cape.  Their helpless ineffectual movements served to bring her to her senses, bring her to herself.

“Really you possess an insatiable thirst for information regarding my probable guests, precious child,” she exclaimed.  “All—­of course not.  I have only portrayed the heads of tribes as yet for your delectation.  We shall number many others—­male and female—­of the usual self-expatriated British rank and file.—­Derelicts mostly.”

Lightly and coldly, Henrietta laughed.

“Like, for example, the General and myself.  Wanderers possessed of a singularly barren species of freedom, without ties, without any sheet-anchor of family or of profession to embarrass our movements, without call to live in one place rather than another.  All along this sun-blessed Riviera you will find them swarming, thick as flies, displaying the trumpery spites and rivalries through which, as I started by pointing out to you, they can alone maintain a degree of individuality and persuade themselves and others they still are actually alive.”

Shocked at this sudden bitterness, touched to the quick by generous pity, regardless of possible onlookers—­here in the village street, where the hoof-beats of the trotting horses echoed loud from the house-walls on either side—­Damaris put her arms round Henrietta Frayling, clasping, kissing her.

“Ah! don’t, Henrietta,” she cried.  “Don’t dare to say such ugly, lying things about your dear self.  They aren’t true.  They’re absurdly, scandalously untrue.—­You who are so brilliant, so greatly admired, who have everyone at your feet!  You who are so kind too,—­think of all the pleasure you have given me to-day, for instance—­and then think how beautifully good you’ve been, and all the time are being, to poor Mr. Wace”—­

Whether Mrs. Frayling’s surprising lapse into sincerity and bald self-criticism were intentional, calculated, or not, she was undoubtedly quick to see and profit by the opening which Damaris’ concluding words afforded her.

“How sweet you are, darling child!  How very dear of you to scold me thus!” she murmured, gently disengaging herself and preening her feathers, somewhat disarranged by the said darling child’s impetuous onset.