Aunt Jeanne Falla’s twinkling eyes furthered the hope.  But it was not realised.  Carette unbent, indeed, and we were good friends as ever, but there was always about her that new cloak of staidness and ladylike polish which became her prettily enough indeed, but which I could very well have done without.  For, you see, in all our doings hitherto, she had always looked up to me as leader, even when she twirled my boyish strength about her finger and made me do her will.  And now, though I was bigger and stronger than ever, she had, in some ways, gone beyond me.  She was, in fact, seeing the world, such as it was in Guernsey in those days, and it made me feel more than ever how small a place Sercq was, and more than ever determined to see the world also.

I warped myself up to Miss Mauger’s green front door at last and gave a valiant rap of the knocker, and hung on to it by sheer force of will to keep myself from running away when I had done it.  And when a maid in a prim white cap opened the door, I had lost my tongue, and stood staring at her till she smiled encouragingly, as though she thought I might have come to ask her out for a walk.

“I’ve come to see Carette—­Ma’m’zelle Le Marchant, I mean,” I stammered, very red and awkward.

“If you’ll come in, I’ll tell Miss Mauger,” she smiled; and I stepped inside, and was shown into one of the front rooms with the very straight curtains.  The room inside was very stiff and straight also.  It occurred to me that if all the other rooms were like it Carette must have found them a very great change from Brecqhou.  Perhaps it was living among these things that had such an effect upon her that she could not shake it off when she came home for the holidays.  The stiff, straight chairs offered me no invitation to be seated, and I stood waiting in the middle of the room.  Then the door opened, and a little elderly lady came in, and saluted me very formally with a curtsey bow which rather upset me, for no one had ever done such a thing to me before.  It made me feel awkward and ill at ease.

Miss Mauger seemed to me very like her drawing-room, straight and precise and stiff.  Her face reminded me somewhat of Aunt Jeanne Falla’s, but lacked the kindly twinkle of the eyes which redeemed Aunt Jeanne’s shrewdest and sharpest speeches.  She had little fiat rows of grey curls, tight to her head, on each side of her face, for all the world like little ormer shells sticking to a stone.

“Monsieur Le Marchant?” she asked.

“No, madame—­ma’m’zelle.  I am Phil Carre.”

“Oh!...  You are not then one of Mademoiselle Le Marchant’s brothers?”

“No, ma’m’zelle.”

“Oh!”

“We have always been friends since we were children,” I explained stumblingly, for her bright little eyes were fixed on me, through her gold-rimmed spectacles, like little gimlets, and made me feel as if I was doing something quite wrong in being there.