Each time we met her greeting was of the warmest, and had in it the recollection of those earlier days.  That, I said to myself, was the real Carette.

And then there would gradually come upon us that thin veil of distance, as though the years and the growth and the experiences of life were setting us a little apart.  And that, I said, was the Miss Maugers.

For my part I would have had Carette as satisfied with my sole companionship as in the days when we romped bare-legged among the pools and rocks, and woke the basking gulls and cormorants with our shouts, and dared the twisting currents with unfettered limbs and no thought of wrong.  These things in all their fulness of delight were, of course, no longer possible to us.  But the joyous spirit of them I would fain have retained, and I found it slipping elusively away.

We were, in fact, and inevitably, putting away the things of our childhood and becoming man and woman, with all the wider and deeper feelings incident thereto.  The changes were inevitable and—­Carette grew in some ways more quickly than I did.  So that, whereas I had always been undisputed leader in all things, even when it was the accomplishing of her wishes, now I found myself looking up to her as something above me, possibly beyond me, something certainly to strive after with all that was in me, and without which everything else would be nothing.

Perhaps I had been inclined to take things somewhat for granted.  Jeanne Falla did not fail, in due course, to tell me so, and she was a very shrewd woman and understood her kind better than any man that ever was born.  Now, taking things for granted is always, and under any circumstances, but most especially where the unknown is in question, a most unwise thing to do.  And what can equal for unfathomableness the workings of a woman’s heart?

I had never given a thought to any other girl than Carette, unless by way of unfavourable comparison.  It is true I had never come across any girl so well worth thinking about.  The merry dark eyes with their deepening depths; the sweet wide mouth that flashed so readily into laughter, and set one thinking of the glad little waves and little white shells on Herm beach; the mane of dark brown hair—­she wore it primly braided at the Miss Maugers’—­in which gleams of sunshine seemed to have become entangled and never been able to find their way out,—­these went with me through the soft seductions of the Antilles, and the more experienced beguilements of the Mediterranean, and armed me sufficiently against them all;—­these also that filled with rosy light many a long hour that for my comrades was dark and tedious, and kept my heart high and strong when the times were hard and bitter.

I had wondered at times, but always pleasurably, at the very unusual amount of education Carette was getting, for it was unusual at that time and under the circumstances, so far as I understood them.  But I rejoiced at it, remembering my grandfather’s saying in my own case; and even when the results of it seemed to drop little veils between us, I am certain I never wished things otherwise so far as Carette was concerned, though perhaps for my own sake I might.