‘Well, my dear child, it has all been very wonderful and uncomfortable?’ said the count.

‘Wonderful, papa; splendid.’

‘No qualms of any kind?’

‘None, I assure you.’  And madame?’

‘Madame will confirm it, if you find a seat for her.’

Rosamund Culling was received in the count’s gondola, cordially thanked, and placed beside the marquis.

‘I stay on board and pay these fellows,’ said Roland.

Renee was told by her father to follow madame.  He had jumped into the spare gondola and offered a seat to Beauchamp.

‘No,’ cried Renee, arresting Beauchamp, ’it is I who mean to sit with papa.’

Up sprang the marquis with an entreating, ‘Mademoiselle!’

‘M.  Beauchamp will entertain you, M. le Marquis.’

‘I want him here,’ said the count; and Beauchamp showed that his wish was to enter the count’s gondola, but Renee had recovered her aplomb, and decisively said ‘No,’ and Beauchamp had to yield.

That would have been an opportunity of speaking to her father without a formal asking of leave.  She knew it as well as Nevil Beauchamp.

Renee took his hand to be assisted in the step down to her father’s arms, murmuring: 

‘Do nothing—­nothing! until you hear from me.’

ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS: 

A bone in a boy’s mind for him to gnaw and worry
A kind of anchorage in case of indiscretion
A night that had shivered repose
Am I thy master, or thou mine? 
An instinct labouring to supply the deficiencies of stupidity
And now came war, the purifier and the pestilence
And one gets the worst of it (in any bargain)
Anticipate opposition by initiating measures
Appetite to flourish at the cost of the weaker
As for titles, the way to defend them is to be worthy of them
Boys are unjust
Braggadocioing in deeds is only next bad to mouthing it
Calm fanaticism of the passion of love
Compassionate sentiments veered round to irate amazement
Despises the pomades and curling-irons of modern romance
Disqualification of constantly offending prejudices
Efforts to weary him out of his project were unsuccessful
Empty magnanimity which his uncle presented to him
Energy to something, that was not to be had in a market
Feminine pity, which is nearer to contempt than to tenderness
Fit of Republicanism in the nursery
Forewarn readers of this history that there is no plot in it
Haunted many pillows
He had expected romance, and had met merchandize
He was too much on fire to know the taste of absurdity
Holding to his work after the strain’s over—­That tells the man
Humour preserved her from excesses of sentiment
I cannot say less, and will say no more
Impudent boy’s fling at superiority over the superior
In India they sacrifice the widows, in France the