“That’s just what I’m not sure about.”  Damaris spoke slowly, gravely, her glance again fixed upon the beacon light set for the safety of passing ships on the further horn of the bay.  “If I could be sure, I should know what to do—­know whether it is right to keep on as—­as I am.  Do you see?”

But what, at this juncture, Carteret did, in point of fact, most consciously see was the return of Henrietta Frayling’s scattered guests, from the Pavilion and other less fully illuminated quarters, towards the main building of the hotel.  From the improvised ball-room within chords struck on the piano and answering tuning of strings invited to the renewal of united and active festivity.  In the face of consequently impending interruption he hazarded a trifle of admonition.

“Dearest witch, you elect to speak in riddles,” he gently told her.  “I am in the dark as to your meaning; so, if I am guilty of uttering foolishness, you must pardon me.  But I own I could wish—­just a bit—­that, in some particulars, you wouldn’t keep on—­I quote your own words—­as you are, or rather have been just lately.”

“Why?” she asked, without moving.

“Because, to be quite honest with you, I am not altogether satisfied about your father.  I am afraid he is getting back into the habit of mind we set out to cure him of, you and I, last November.”

Damaris sprang to attention.

“And I haven’t noticed it.  I Wouldn’t stop to notice it.  I have been too busy about my own concerns and have neglected him.”

Arrayed in her spotless virgin finery, her head carried proudly, though her eyes were sombre with self-reproach, self-accusation, and her lips quivered, she confronted Carteret.  And his clean loyal soul went out to her in a poignant, an exquisite, agony of tenderness and of desire.  He would have given his right hand to save her pain.  Given his life gladly, just then, to secure her welfare and happiness; yet he had struck her—­for her own good possibly—­possibly just blindly, instinctively, in self-defence.  He tried to shut down the emotion which threatened to betray him and steady on to the playfully affectionate tone of their customary intercourse; but it is to be feared the effort lacked convincingness of quality.

“No—­no,” he said, “you take it altogether too hard.  You exaggerate, dear witch, to the point of extravagance.  You have been less constantly with your father than usual—­you’re the delight of his life after all, as you must very well know—­and inevitably he has missed you.  Nothing worse than that.  The damage, such as it is, can easily be repaired.”

“Ah! but the damage, as you call it, starts behind all that in something else—­something older, much deeper down, of which I doubt whether any lasting reparation is possible.  I did try to repair it.  All my going out with Henrietta, and this rushing about lately, began in that trying—­truly it did, Colonel Sahib.  And then I suppose I got above myself—­as poor Nannie used to say—­and came to care for the rushing about just for its own sake”—­