uard for once. And like all artistic
people Marshall is a little absent-minded--absorbed to the point of not
seeing exactly what he is doing.--Poor young man, I sometimes tremble for
his future. Such a highly strung, sensitive nature amounts almost to a
curse. If he got into wrong hands what mightn't the end be?--Catastrophe,
for he is capable of fatal desperation. And I must own men--with the
exception of my husband who is simply an angel to him--do not always
understand and are not quite kind to him. He needs a wise loving woman to
develop the best in him--there is so very much which is good--and to
guide him."

"Well," Damaris said, and that without suspicion of irony, "dearest
Henrietta, hasn't he you?"

Mrs. Frayling took up the ivory hand-glass, and sitting sideways on the
dressing-stool, turned her graceful head hither and thither, to obtain
the fuller view of her back hair.

"Me? But you forget, I have other claims to satisfy. I can't look after
him for ever. I must find him a wife I suppose; though I really shall be
rather loath to give him up. His gratitude and loneliness touch me so
much," she said, looking up and smiling, with a little twist in her
mouth, as of playful and unwilling resignation, captivating to see.

By which cajoleries and expression of praiseworthy sentiment, Henrietta
raised herself notably in Damaris' estimation--as she fully intended to
do. Our maiden kissed her with silent favour; and, mysteries of the
toilette completed, more closely united than ever before--that is, since
the date of the elder's second advent--the two ladies, presenting the
prettiest picture imaginable, went downstairs again, gaily, hand in hand.

CHAPTER VI

CARNIVAL--AND AFTER

Tall and slim, in the black and white of his evening clothes, Colonel
Carteret leaned his shoulder against an iron pillar of the verandah of
the Hotel de la Plage, and smoked, looking meditatively down into the
moonlit garden. Through the range of brightly lighted open windows
behind him came the sound of a piano and stringed instruments, a subdued
babble of voices, the whisper of women's skirts, and the sliding rush of
valsing feet.

To-night marked the culmination and apex of Henrietta Frayling's social
effort. It was mid-March, mid-Lent--which last fact she made an
excuse--after taking ecclesiastical opinion on the subject, namely, that
of Herbert Binning, the Anglican chaplain--for issuing invitations to a
Cinderella dan