e end of
dinner. Never before had Charmian felt herself to be on equal terms with
her mother and Heath. She was secretly excited and she was able to give
herself to her excitement. It helped her, pushed on her intelligence.
She saw that Heath found her more interesting than usual. She began to
realize that her journey had made her interesting to him. He had refused
to go, and now was envying her because she had not refused. Her
depreciation of Algiers had been a mistake. She corrected it now. And
she saw that she had a certain influence upon Heath. She attributed it
to her secret assertion of her will. She was not going to sit down any
longer and be nobody, a pretty graceful girl who didn't matter. Will is
everything in the world. Now she loved she had a fierce reason for using
her will. Even her mother, who knew her in every mood, was surprised by
Charmian that evening.

Heath stayed till rather late. When he got up to go away, Charmian said:

"Don't you wish you had come on the yacht? Don't you wish you had seen
the island?"

He hesitated, looking down on her and Mrs. Mansfield, and holding his
hands behind him. After a strangely long pause he answered:

"I don't want to wish that, I don't mean to wish it."

"Do you really think we can control our desires?" she asked, and now she
spoke very gravely, almost earnestly.

"I suppose so. Why not?"

"Oh!" she said petulantly. "You remind me of Oliver Cromwell--somebody
of that kind--you ought to have lived in Puritan days. It's
England--England--England in you shrivelling you up. I'm sure in all
Algiers there isn't one person (not English) who thinks as you do. But
if you were to travel, if you were to give yourself a chance, how
different you'd be!"

"Charmian, you impertinent child!" said Mrs. Mansfield, smiling, but in
a voice that was rather sad.

"It's the Channel! It's the Channel! I'm not myself to-night!"

Heath laughed and said something light and gay. But as he went out of
the room his face looked troubled.

As soon as he had gone, Charmian got up and turned to her mother.

"Are you very angry with me, Madre?"

"No. There always was a touch of the minx in you, and I suppose it is
ineradicable. What have you been doing to your face?"

Charmian flushed. The blood even went up to her forehead, and for once
she looked confused, almost ashamed.

"My face? You--you have noticed something?"

"Of course, directly you came down. Has Adelaide taught you