ons upon her
possible luck at cards that night. She had lost heavily of late and it
was time she retrieved her fortunes.

At dinner and in the saloon later the talk was all of the poet's
disappearance. Some held out for the known eccentricities of genius,
others avowed themselves in favour of the theory that respectable
society had risen to its surfeit the night before. The natural
reaction had set in and he was enjoying himself once more in his own
way and wondering that he had submitted to be bored so long. Anne went
to bed her mind a chaos of doubt and terror.

CHAPTER XVI

She would have overslept again had it not been for the faithful maid
with her coffee. She sprang out of bed at once, a trifle disburdened
by the thought of a long ramble alone in the early morning, and,
postponing her swim in the tanks below until her return, dressed so
hurriedly that had hats been in vogue hers no doubt would have gone
on back foremost. She was feverishly afraid of being intercepted,
although such a thing had never occurred, the other women being far
too elegant to rise so early, and a proper sense of decorum forbidding
the young men to offer their escort.

The sea had never been a stiller, hotter blue, the mountain more
golden, the sky more like an opening rose. But she strode on seeing
nothing. Sleep had given her no rest and she was in a torment of
spirit that was a new experience in her uneventful life. She recalled
the angry astonished eyes of Warner as she danced with all the abandon
of a girl at her first ball. No doubt he had thought her vain and
frivolous, the average young lady at whose approach he fled when he
could. No doubt he thought her in love with Abergenny, whose habit of
turning female heads was well known to him, and upon whom she had
certainly beamed good will. No doubt he had expected her to manage to
pass him, knowing his diffidence, and offer her congratulations;
whereas she had taken no notice of him whatever. No doubt--oh, no
doubt--he had rushed off in a fury of disappointment and disgust, and
all the good work of the past weeks had been undone, all her plans of
meeting him a year hence as handsome and fine a man as he had every
right to be, were frustrated. She had for some time past detected
signs that apathy was gradually relieving a naturally fine spirit of
its heavy burden, that his weary indifference was giving place to a
watchful alertness, which in spite of the old mask he continued