The morning post had brought her a missive from Colonel Carteret announcing his “recall” to England, and deploring the imposed haste of it as preventing him from making his adieux to her in person.  The letter contained a number of flattering tributes to her own charms and to old times in India, the pleasures of which—­unforgettable by him—­he had had the happiness of sharing with her.  Yet—­to her reading of it—­this friendly communication remained enigmatic, its kindly sentences punctuated by more than one interjectional enquiry.  Namely, what was the cause of this sudden “recall”?  And what was his reason for not coming to say good-bye to her?  Haste, she held an excuse of almost childish transparency.  It went deeper than that.  Simply he had wanted not to see her.

Since the night of the dance no opportunity had occurred for observing Carteret and Damaris when together.—­Really, how General Frayling’s tiresome illness shipwrecked her private plans!—­And, from the beginning, she had entertained an uneasy suspicion regarding Carteret’s attitude.  Men can be so extraordinarily feeble-minded where young girls are concerned!  Had anything happened during her withdrawal from society?  In the light, or rather the obscurity, of Carteret’s letter, a visit to Damaris became more than ever imperative.

Her own competence to extract the truth from that guileless maiden, Henrietta in nowise questioned.  “The child,” she complacently told herself, when preparing to set forth on her mission, “is like wax in my hands.”

The above conviction she repeated now, as the horses swept the victoria along the shore road, while from beneath her white umbrella she absently watched the alternate lift and plunge of the dazzling ultramarine and Tyrian purple sea upon the polished rocks and pebbles of the shelving beach.

To Henrietta Nature, save as decoration to the human drama, meant nothing.  But the day was hot, for the time of year royally so, and this rejoiced her.  She basked in the sunshine with a cat-like luxury of content.  Her hands never grew moist in the heat, nor her hair untidy, her skin unbecomingly red, nor her general appearance in the least degree blousy.  She remained enchantingly intact, unaffected, except for an added glint, an added refinement.  To-day’s temperature justified the adoption of summer attire, of those thin, clear-coloured silk and muslin fabrics so deliciously to her taste.  She wore a lavender dress.  It was new, every pleat and frill inviolate, at their crispest and most uncrumpled.  In this she found a fund of permanent satisfaction steeling her to intrepid enterprise.

Hence she scorned all ceremonies of introduction.  She dared to pounce.  Having ascertained the number of Sir Charles Verity’s sitting-room she refused obsequious escort, tripped straight upstairs unattended, rapped lightly, opened the door and—­with swift reconnoitering of the scene within—­announced her advent thus: