And when the pair of married sweethearts emerged into the glare of lamps outside Luc Casino, Dinah’s face was radiant. Lord Rex, devotedly attentive at the moment to pretty Rosie Verschoyle, saw, and felt mystified. Decidedly, the Methodistic heart, like the Methodistic conscience, was a book wherein Rex Basire might not read. Linda Thorne approached at once; a tall figure, diaphanous, graceful, in the lamplight. An Indian shawl was on Linda’s arm, one of those exquisite dull-hued cachemires capable of investing the plainest woman with ephemeral poetry. Her hand held a bunch of wild flowers; a long trail of bindweed was twined, by fingers not unversed in millinery, round her hat. ‘I hope you approve my ball attire?’ She asked this with a little curtsey, her eyes addressing Gaston rather than Gaston’s wife. ‘Our hosts tell us that we have all free entrance to the Casino, the result, I suspect, of some liberal bribe to the Administration. Really, the way our subalterns have preconcerted every detail of their picnic has quite a Monte Christo flavour. You are engaged to me, remember, Mr. Arbuthnot, for your first waltz.’ ‘There will be neither first nor last, Mrs. Thorne. I exhausted the very small dancing power that is in me on Hortense and Eulalie this afternoon. I have not waltzed with a partner over seven for years,’ added Gaston. ‘My step dates from the days of Louis Philippe.’ Nevertheless he moved away from Dinah; he followed whithersoever Mrs. Thorne might choose to lead. She chose the Luc dunes--that broad belt of wind-blown sand, held together by coarse grasses or sea thistles, which stretches the entire length of the straggling village, and forms a welcome contrast to the burnt-up turf terrace, with burnt-up geraniums, mildewed urns, and peeling stucco goddesses of loftier watering-places. This evening Luc was merry-making. There were fireworks, there was a procession of torches--one of those ever-recurring processions by which the hearts of Parisian children, big and little, are gladdened at the seaside. Tiny figures marched, two and two, with Chinese lamps along the village causeway. A band of small boys evoked martial melody from drum and fife. Catherine-wheels rotated, rockets scurried up into space. By and by an artfully constructed bonfire of colza stalks flared up in the centre of the plage. Hand linked in hand the children danced around it. ‘Nous irons aux bois, Les lauriers sont coupés.’ Their shrill voices rang across the dunes. Gaston Arbuthnot could descry his friends, Hortense and Eulalie, wildly circling around the red flames with the rest. As he did so, he thought involuntarily of his sketch-book, forgotten from the moment when the children laid violent hands upon him, hours ago, until this instant. ‘Oh, I know! Your sketch-book is gone,’ cried Linda, as he felt in pocket after pocket. ‘This is the Nemesis that falls on creatures of impulse, Mr. Arbuthnot.’