," he added. "Her nervous energy is deceptive. I
must refuse to let it override my better judgment and take me in."

By luncheon time, however, Henrietta was altogether herself, save for a
pretty pensiveness, and emerged with all her accustomed amiability from
this temporary eclipse.

The Fraylings occupied a small detached villa, built in the grounds of
the Hotel de la Plage--a rival and venerably senior establishment to the
Grand Hotel--situate just within the confines of St. Augustin, where the
town curves along the glistering shore to the western horn of the little
bay. At the back of it runs the historic high road from Marseilles to the
Italian frontier, passing through Cannes and Nice. Behind it, too, runs
the railway with its many tunnels, following the same, though a somewhat
less serpentine, course along the gracious coast.

To the ex-Anglo-Indian woman, society is as imperative a necessity as
water to a fish. She must foregather or life loses all its savour; must
entertain, be entertained, rub shoulders generally or she is lost.
Henrietta Frayling suffered the accustomed fate, though to speak of
rubbing shoulders in connection with her is to express oneself
incorrectly to the verge of grossness. Her shoulders were of an order far
too refined to rub or be rubbed. Nevertheless, after the shortest
interval consistent with self-respect, such society as St. Augustin and
its neighbourhood afforded found itself enmeshed in her dainty net. Mrs.
Frayling's villa became a centre, where all English-speaking persons
met. There she queened it, with her General as loyal henchman, and
Marshall Wace as a professor of drawing-room talents of most varied sort.

Discovery of the party at the Grand Hotel, took the gilt off the
gingerbread of such queenings, to a marked extent, making them look
make-shifty, lamentably second-rate and cheap. Hence Henrietta's
fretfulness in part. For with the exception of Lady Hermione
Twells--widow of a once Colonial Governor--and the Honourable Mrs.
Callowgas _nee_ de Brett, relict of a former Bishop of Harchester, they
were but scratch pack these local guests of hers. Soon, however, a scheme
of putting that discovery to use broke in on her musings. The old
friendship must, she feared, be counted dead. General Frayling's
existence, in the capacity of husband, rendered any resurrection of it
impracticable. She recognized that. Yet exhibition of its tombstone, were
such exhibition compassable, c