took Denis and me for husband and wife!" Leonetta exclaimed, bursting
with laughter once more.

Cleopatra's hand shook a little, but she did not look up.

"He probably noticed us waiting outside and thought you were the
schoolmistress of the party,--that's all," interjected Vanessa.

Everybody laughed except Leonetta.

"That's absurd," she protested, "because he could scarcely have thought
I could be----"

But her voice was drowned by more laughter, led chiefly by Vanessa.

"Oh, well, it's not worth arguing about, any way," said the Jewess,
twirling her bathing dress round very rapidly.

"Don't do that!" cried Leonetta sharply. "Can't you see that you're
simply drenching poor Peachy?"

Mrs. Delarayne smiled imperceptibly at this remark, and all the bathers
ran off to prepare for lunch.

"I think," said the widow to her elder daughter, "that it would have
been only considerate if Denis had offered to stay behind to keep you
company this morning."

Cleopatra, bundling up her work with lightning speed, rose. Her ears
were hot and red, and she could not let her mother see her face.

"Do you,--oh, well, I don't," she said a little tetchily, and made
rapidly towards the house.

Mrs. Delarayne stared sadly after her. Had she said anything
offensive?--Children were difficult, very difficult, she thought; and
she longed for the freedom and the society of her London home.

"I think I made Denis rather savage this morning," Leonetta was
explaining to Vanessa, meanwhile, as the two were arranging their hair
in the bedroom they shared.

Vanessa, stopping her operations for a moment, turned and regarded her
friend with some interest.

"When and where?" she demanded.

"Well, you know that awfully good-looking boy who was sitting on the
bench when we bathed yesterday----"

Vanessa nodded in her business-like way.

"Well, didn't you notice that he bathed at the same time as we did
to-day?"

"Oh, I thought I saw him," replied Vanessa.

"And he kept standing in the water," Leonetta continued, "with his arms
folded, staring at me. He looked most awfully wicked,--it was lovely!"
she cried laughing.

"But where does Denis come in?" enquired the Jewess, who was not too
prone to jump to hasty conclusions concerning other people's triumphs.

"Well, don't you see,--Denis saw him, and saw that I sometimes stared
back at him."

"Oh, is that all?" Vanessa exclaimed, with a somewhat exaggerated note
of disappointment