two years Shelton went to Holm Oaks whenever he was asked; to him this was a period of enchanted games, of cub-hunting, theatricals, and distant sounds of practised music, and during it Antonia’s eyes grew more friendly and more curious, and his own more shy, and schooled, more furtive and more ardent.  Then came his father’s death, a voyage round the world, and that peculiar hour of mixed sensations when, one March morning, abandoning his steamer at Marseilles, he took train for Hyeres.

He found her at one of those exclusive hostelries amongst the pines where the best English go, in common with Americans, Russian princesses, and Jewish families; he would not have been shocked to find her elsewhere, but he would have been surprised.  His sunburnt face and the new beard, on which he set some undefined value, apologetically displayed, were scanned by those blue eyes with rapid glances, at once more friendly and less friendly.  “Ah!” they seemed to say, “here you are; how glad I am!  But—­what now?”

He was admitted to their sacred table at the table d’hote, a snowy oblong in an airy alcove, where the Honourable Mrs. Dennant, Miss Dennant, and the Honourable Charlotte Penguin, a maiden aunt with insufficient lungs, sat twice a day in their own atmosphere.  A momentary weakness came on Shelton the first time he saw them sitting there at lunch.  What was it gave them their look of strange detachment?  Mrs. Dennant was bending above a camera.

“I’m afraid, d’ you know, it’s under-exposed,” she said.

“What a pity!  The kitten was rather nice!” The maiden aunt, placing the knitting of a red silk tie beside her plate, turned her aspiring, well-bred gaze on Shelton.

“Look, Auntie,” said Antonia in her clear, quick voice, “there’s the funny little man again!”

“Oh,” said the maiden aunt—­a smile revealed her upper teeth; she looked for the funny little man (who was not English)—­“he’s rather nice!”

Shelton did not look for the funny little man; he stole a glance that barely reached Antonia’s brow, where her eyebrows took their tiny upward slant at the outer corners, and her hair was still ruffled by a windy walk.  From that moment he became her slave.

“Mr. Shelton, do you know anything about these periscopic binoculars?” said Mrs. Dennant’s voice; “they’re splendid for buildin’s, but buildin’s are so disappointin’.  The thing is to get human interest, isn’t it?” and her glance wandered absently past Shelton in search of human interest.

“You haven’t put down what you’ve taken, mother.”

From a little leather bag Mrs. Dennant took a little leather book.

“It’s so easy to forget what they’re about,” she said, “that’s so annoyin’.”

Shelton was not again visited by his uneasiness at their detachment; he accepted them and all their works, for there was something quite sublime about the way that they would leave the dining-room, unconscious that they themselves were funny to all the people they had found so funny while they had been sitting there, and he would follow them out unnecessarily upright and feeling like a fool.