“Then I don’t want to go!” Nina stormed.  But in the end she did go.  The alternative of moping about Crownlands, and seeing her idol only at intervals, was not alluring, and Mrs. Tabor herself urged her to go.  Madame Carter, Nina, and Harriet duly sailed, in the second week of January, and Ward joined them almost a month later, in Nassau.  And here Harriet had the brother and sister at their best, free to show the genuine childishness that was in them, to swim and picnic and tramp, and here she indulged Nina in long talks, and encouraged her to associate with the young people she met.  Madame Carter found the island air a help to her rheumatic knee, and consequently made no protest against a lengthened stay.  She slept, ate, and felt better than in the cold northern winter, and at seventy-five these considerations were important.

Harriet wrote once a week to Richard, making a general report, and enclosing receipted hotel and miscellaneous bills.  His communications usually took the form of cables, although once or twice she received typewritten letters.

In mid-April they all came home again, and Crownlands, in the year’s first shy filming of green, looked wonderful to Harriet’s homesick eyes.  With joyous noises and confusion Ward and Nina scattered their possessions about, and the old lady bustled, chattered, and commented.  Bottomley and Pilgrim were apparently enchanted to welcome home their one-time tormentors, and in the fresh, orderly rooms, and the scent of early flowers, and the burgeoning winds that shook the blossoms, there was a wholesome order and familiarity delicious to the wanderers.

Richard was to join them at dinner; it had been impossible for him to meet them when the boat arrived, but Fox had been there and attended to the formalities.  It had pleased them all to make the occasion formal and to dress accordingly.  Nina looked her prettiest in a white silk, and the old lady was magnificent in diamonds and brocade.  Harriet deliberately selected her handsomest gown, a severe black satin that wrapped her slender body with one superb and shining sweep, and left her white arms and firm, flawless shoulders bare.  The weeks of sunshine and fresh air had been good for her, as for the others, and when she was dressed, and stood in the full blaze of the lights, looking at herself, she would not have been human not to be pleased.  Her bright hair was dressed high, and shone in rich waves and curves against the soft, dusky forehead, and above the black-fringed, smoke-blue eyes.  The firm young lines of chin and throat, the swelling white breast that met the encasing satin, the slippers with their twinkling buckles—­she could not but find every detail pleasing, and her scarlet mouth, firmly shut, was twitched by a sudden dimple.

She glanced at the clock, went slowly to the door, and slowly down the big square stairway.  Richard and his children were in the lower hall, and they all glanced up.