‘My afternoon has been passed in a thoroughly mundane and grovelling manner, Dinah. I left this house at about three, just when you were giving Lord Rex Basire a lesson in cross-stitch! Since then I have been spending my time, not in solemn thoughts that required genuflexion, but in listening to the last little version of the last little bit of island gossip. It seems you mean, after all, to go into the world where, as I have often told you, so many more sink than swim. You have accepted Rex Basire’s invitation for the picnic next Wednesday?’ The accusation, if it were one, came with a sharpness of ring foreign to Gaston Arbuthnot’s modulated voice. Dinah’s colour deepened. ‘I have accepted Lord Rex Basire’s invitation for Wednesday--yes.’ ‘You cannot, I think, mean to go. The picnic will be a helter-skelter kind of affair. It was got up by these young men, in the first instance, more as a frolic than anything else, and----’ ‘You are going yourself, are you not, Gaston?’ ‘That is uncertain. I believe I did give a conditional consent over the dinner-table, before it was at all sure the thing would come off.’ ‘And Mrs. Thorne is going?’ ‘Oh, Linda goes everywhere. There is a legend that she and the Doctor dined one night at mess.’ ‘And Madame Corbie? Don’t you think a party that is staid enough for an Archdeacon’s wife must be safe for me?’ It was Dinah who spoke; yet the tone, the words, were curiously unlike Dinah’s. Some other woman, surely, stood in the place of her who during four years had been as wax to every careless turn of Gaston Arbuthnot’s will! ‘I can see that you have made up your mind--confess, Dinah, you have run already to Madame Voisin’s and ordered your dress for Wednesday?’ She turned away, impatiently, at the question. ‘Well, I will not be unwise enough to argue. At least persuade Geoffrey to go too, get Geoffrey to take care of you. Had I been consulted,’ remarked Gaston drily, ‘I should have advised you to “come out” anywhere rather than on a yacht hired, in this kind of way, by Lord Rex Basire and his brother subs.’ ‘Gaston!’ ‘Oh, not because of the right or wrong of the thing. I don’t,’ said Gaston, ‘go in for transcendental attitudes, morally or physically. My advice would have been simply offered on a matter of taste. You, my love, are doubtless the best judge. What time is it--seven? Then I have scarcely half-an-hour left to dress.’ ‘To dress!’ faltered Dinah. ‘And my briar roses, our walk to Roscoff Common? I have been looking forward to it for days. Did you not promise to draw me some real briar roses for the finish of my border?’ ‘Of course, I promised, and of course I shall fulfil, my dear child. The Roscoff roses will keep.’ ‘And you are going out to dinner again, Gaston?’ ‘Only to The Bungalow.’ Mr. Arbuthnot made a move towards the door of his dressing-room. ‘Mrs. Thorne is amiable enough generally to condone a morning-coat. To-night, I believe, there will be more of a party than usual.’