Upon this slight whisper of encouragement Rex Basire entered voluminously into details. The proprieties--to begin, he declared, solemn of face, with the facts of greatest significance--the proprieties were set at rest. An undeniable Archdeaconess, a Cassandra Tighe (minus nothing but her harp), were secured. The de Carteret girls, and Rosie Verschoyle, four of the Guernsey beauties regnant, had accepted. It would be a high spring tide on Wednesday, and the _Princess_ must start early to reach the Race of Alderney before the ebb. Afternoon would find them anchored off Langrune, in Normandy. ‘Where we shall land, observe the manners and customs of the natives, eat a French dinner, take our little whirl, perhaps, in the casino ball-room,’ said Lord Rex, ‘and so back, à la Pepys, to our virtuous homes.’ ‘The scheme is too gay for me,’ cried Dinah, with an uneasy dread of Gaston’s disapproval. ‘I never danced in my life. I hope--no, I am sure, my lord, that I shall never set foot inside the walls of a casino.’ ‘Not of a French casino, Mrs. Arbuthnot?’ Lord Rex argued warily, still mindful of the puritanical note. ‘Certainly not. A French casino! Why, that only makes it worse.’ ‘A French casino is an innocent kind of sea-side dancing school. Papas and mammas of families sit around. Small boys and girls exhibit their steps. Papa drinks his little glass of absinthe, mamma her tumbler of sugar-water. We go back to our hotel, hand-in-hand with the babies, at ten o’clock. Except the Zoological Gardens on week days, I know no human form of dissipation so mild as a French casino.’ ‘I should have to meet too many strangers on board. I should be alone among them all. The only lady in Guernsey who has called on me is Geff’s pupil, Miss Bartrand of Tintajeux.’ ‘Who will be invited to come, under your charge.’ Lord Rex adroitly left more delicate social questions untouched. ‘Marjorie Bartrand would be rough on a chaperon, I should think. Difficult to say whom the Girtonian of the future would not be rough on! But you, Mrs. Arbuthnot, seem to have stepped into her favour.’ ‘And is Geoffrey to be asked?’ ‘Geoffrey? Ah, to be sure--your cousin. Senior wrangler, was he not?’ ‘Geoffrey took his honours in classics.’ ‘Frightfully “boss” man, any way. Does not look as if he cared about frivolous amusements in general, still----’ Lord Rex hesitated. Some finer prophetic sense informed him that Geoffrey Arbuthnot’s might be a name as well omitted from the programme of pleasure he was chalking out with such zealous trouble for next Wednesday. ‘But is the party to be frivolous? I hardly understood that. No one loves the sea better than Geff. He will go, I’m sure, if I go.’ This was said by Dinah with conviction. Through long habit she had come to regard Geoffrey’s obedience to her smallest wish as an accomplished fact.