on he hazarded a trifle of admonition.

"Dearest witch, you elect to speak in riddles," he gently told her. "I am
in the dark as to your meaning; so, if I am guilty of uttering
foolishness, you must pardon me. But I own I could wish--just a
bit--that, in some particulars, you wouldn't keep on--I quote your own
words--as you are, or rather have been just lately."

"Why?" she asked, without moving.

"Because, to be quite honest with you, I am not altogether satisfied
about your father. I am afraid he is getting back into the habit of mind
we set out to cure him of, you and I, last November."

Damaris sprang to attention.

"And I haven't noticed it. I Wouldn't stop to notice it. I have been too
busy about my own concerns and have neglected him."

Arrayed in her spotless virgin finery, her head carried proudly, though
her eyes were sombre with self-reproach, self-accusation, and her lips
quivered, she confronted Carteret. And his clean loyal soul went out to
her in a poignant, an exquisite, agony of tenderness and of desire. He
would have given his right hand to save her pain. Given his life gladly,
just then, to secure her welfare and happiness; yet he had struck
her--for her own good possibly--possibly just blindly, instinctively, in
self-defence. He tried to shut down the emotion which threatened to
betray him and steady on to the playfully affectionate tone of their
customary intercourse; but it is to be feared the effort lacked
convincingness of quality.

"No--no," he said, "you take it altogether too hard. You exaggerate, dear
witch, to the point of extravagance. You have been less constantly with
your father than usual--you're the delight of his life after all, as you
must very well know--and inevitably he has missed you. Nothing worse than
that. The damage, such as it is, can easily be repaired."

"Ah! but the damage, as you call it, starts behind all that in something
else--something older, much deeper down, of which I doubt whether any
lasting reparation is possible. I did try to repair it. All my going out
with Henrietta, and this rushing about lately, began in that
trying--truly it did, Colonel Sahib. And then I suppose I got above
myself--as poor Nannie used to say--and came to care for the rushing
about just for its own sake"--

"My dance, I believe, Miss Verity."

The speaker, Mr. Alban Titherage--well-groomed, rosy and
self-complacent--pulled down the fronts of his white waistcoat. He
inclined to