Don't you think it would look rather
unfriendly on the part of you girls? Rather snubby, eh?"

That was precisely what Diana, had thought, and the reflection had
afforded her no small satisfaction. She wanted to hit back--and hit
hard--and now Pobs' kindly, hospitable nature was unconsciously putting
the brake on the wheel of retribution.

She shrugged her shoulders with an air of indifference.

"Oh, well, you and Joan can call. I don't think actresses, and authors
who love them and write plays for them, are much in my line," she
replied distantly.

It would seem as though Joan's dictum that presentiments, like dreams,
go by contraries, had been founded upon the rock of experience, for, in
truth, Diana's premonition that something delightful was about to
happen to her had been fulfilled in a sorry fashion.

CHAPTER VI

THE AFTERMATH OF AN ADVENTURE

Diana awoke with a start. Before sleep had overtaken her she had been
lying on a shallow slope of sand, leaning against a rock, with her elbow
resting on its flat surface and her book propped up in front of her.
Gradually the rhythmic rise and fall of the waves on the shore had lulled
her into slumber--the _plop_ as they broke in eddies of creaming foam,
and then the sibilant _hush-sh-sh_--like a long-drawn sigh--as the water
receded only to gather itself afresh into a crested billow.

Scarcely more than half awake she sat up and stared about her, dreamily
wondering how she came to be there. She felt very stiff, and the arm on
which she had been leaning ached horribly. She rubbed it a little, dully
conscious of the pain, and as the blood began to course through the veins
again, the sharp, pricking sensation commonly known as "pins and needles"
aroused her effectually, and she recollected that she had walked out to
Culver Point and established herself in one of the numerous little bays
that fringed the foot of the great red cliff, intending to spend a
pleasant afternoon in company with a new novel. And then the Dustman
(idling about until his duties proper should commence in the evening) had
come by and touched her eyelids and she had fallen fast asleep.

But she was thoroughly wide awake now, and she looked round her with a
rather startled expression, realising that she must have slept for some
considerable time, for the sun, which had been high in the heavens, had
already dipped towards the horizon and was shedding a rosy track of light
across the su