and when they begin to understand they take it all much too seriously.  My brother-in-law really deserved a catastrophe—­which he won’t get.  I now pray for a young man to come to my help; some one, I mean, who would talk to her openly, and prove how absurd most of her ideas about life are.  Unluckily such men seem almost as rare as the women.  The English colony certainly doesn’t provide one; artists, merchants, cultivated people—­they are stupid, conventional, and flirtatious. . . .”  She ceased, and with her pen in her hand sat looking into the fire, making the logs into caves and mountains, for it had grown too dark to go on writing.  Moreover, the house began to stir as the hour of dinner approached; she could hear the plates being chinked in the dining-room next door, and Chailey instructing the Spanish girl where to put things down in vigorous English.  The bell rang; she rose, met Ridley and Rachel outside, and they all went in to dinner.

Three months had made but little difference in the appearance either of Ridley or Rachel; yet a keen observer might have thought that the girl was more definite and self-confident in her manner than before.  Her skin was brown, her eyes certainly brighter, and she attended to what was said as though she might be going to contradict it.  The meal began with the comfortable silence of people who are quite at their ease together.  Then Ridley, leaning on his elbow and looking out of the window, observed that it was a lovely night.

“Yes,” said Helen.  She added, “The season’s begun,” looking at the lights beneath them.  She asked Maria in Spanish whether the hotel was not filling up with visitors.  Maria informed her with pride that there would come a time when it was positively difficult to buy eggs—­the shopkeepers would not mind what prices they asked; they would get them, at any rate, from the English.

“That’s an English steamer in the bay,” said Rachel, looking at a triangle of lights below.  “She came in early this morning.”

“Then we may hope for some letters and send ours back,” said Helen.

For some reason the mention of letters always made Ridley groan, and the rest of the meal passed in a brisk argument between husband and wife as to whether he was or was not wholly ignored by the entire civilised world.

“Considering the last batch,” said Helen, “you deserve beating.  You were asked to lecture, you were offered a degree, and some silly woman praised not only your books but your beauty—­she said he was what Shelley would have been if Shelley had lived to fifty-five and grown a beard.  Really, Ridley, I think you’re the vainest man I know,” she ended, rising from the table, “which I may tell you is saying a good deal.”

Finding her letter lying before the fire she added a few lines to it, and then announced that she was going to take the letters now—­Ridley must bring his—­and Rachel?

“I hope you’ve written to your Aunts?  It’s high time.”