And he who had argued that there may be higher ideals of an octogenarian than are comprised by culture, originality, vigorous health, an arrogant profile, and a courtly bow, would have stood poor chance of escaping without scar from their hands. ‘The Seigneur grows robuster every year,’ remarked Mrs. Verschoyle to Cassandra Tighe, on the afternoon of July 2. The ‘Tintajeux levée’ had opened. The elder ladies were ranged along the row of white and gold arm-chairs that surrounded the drawing-room. ‘Time stands still with Andros Bartrand. Look at him talking--flirting, I call it--with Rosie. The child declares, if the Seigneur would only ask her, she is quite prepared to answer “Yes.”’ ‘What would Lord Rex Basire say to that?’ whispered Cassandra, warming up at the faintest suggestion of a love affair. Mrs. Verschoyle looked mournfully perplexed, the chronic state of her good, maternal, overburdened soul. ‘Lord Rex Basire? One certainly seems,’ said poor Mrs. Verschoyle inappositely, ‘to have seen less of him since the picnic. But then we have no gentleman to leave a card at the Fort! That is the worst of an unmarried colonel in a regiment. One really can _not_ do the polite thing. Does any one know, I wonder,’ a faint pink blush suffused the whiteness of Mrs. Verschoyle’s cheek as some misty sequence of ideas ran through her brain--‘does any one know if there is truth in this rumour of the Arbuthnot family leaving the island?’ ‘I can give reliable information about one member of the Arbuthnot family,’ cried the prettiest, least wise, of the de Carterets. This young lady, in the absence of better amusement, had been listening to the exchange of confidences between her elders. ‘Mr. Geoffrey Arbuthnot leaves Guernsey to-morrow. I am sure of my facts, because papa went to inquire at Miller’s after a room for Fred. You know, Mrs. Verschoyle, that we have had a telegram from Lloyd’s? Fred will be home on Monday.’ ‘I hope your poor mother will get no shock when she sees him,’ Mrs. Verschoyle answered sadly. ‘Not one young man in fifty brings back a constitution from India.’ ‘And Miller said the younger Mr. Arbuthnot’s room would be vacant to-morrow. I appreciated Mr. Geoffrey Arbuthnot highly at the subalterns’ picnic, and should like to have seen more of him, only Marjorie Bartrand would not let me! Yes, Miss Bartrand,’ ran on Ada de Carteret guilelessly, but putting additional meaning in her tone as Marjorie came within earshot, ‘and--although this is not meant for you to hear--I can tell by your face that you are listening, that your conscience pricks you.’ Listening! Ay, that was Marjorie Bartrand, in truth, outwardly listening, with strained sense, to the even hum of small-talk that filled the rooms, inwardly awaiting, with the keen expectancy that hardly needs the help of bodily hearing, for the step, the voice whose absence already made the world blank to her.