Altogether they were a clean-bred, self-contained, easy-going band, unostentatious but quietly exclusive--thoroughly representative of the sanest and most reputable section of that variegated cosmos which represents what Gallic students of British sociology term "Le Higlif." Very few of them possessed much money: theirs was a stratum of society to which money was no passport. You could have money if you liked, they conceded, but you must have a good many other things first. Hence the absence from their midst of Hoggenheimer and Aspasia. Jim Carthew had not meant to come. Juggernaut had given him six weeks' leave, for there had been an Autumn Session in town and an industrial upheaval in the country, and the squire had worked early and late by his knight's side. Consequently when the spring came Carthew was summarily bidden to go to Scotland and fish. Without quite knowing why, he went to Cannes instead, where Nina Tallentyre, attended by a zealous but mutually-distrustful guard-of-honour, was enjoying herself after her fashion under the inadequate wing of Lady Hilton. When the exodus to Algiers was mooted, Carthew labelled his portmanteau London. But he ultimately crossed the Mediterranean with the rest. He had never seen Africa, he explained to himself. Daphne was of the party too. (Possibly the reader has already identified her as one of the three grass widows.) She had despatched Master Brian Vereker Carr to Belton for a season, and joined the Hiltons' party four weeks ago. The great new house in town stood empty. After her husband's bombshell in February, she had felt bound to do something to show her spirit. Another strike was brewing in the north, so doubtless her lord and master would soon be congenially occupied in starving his dependents into submission. Meanwhile her duty was to herself. Domestic ties were at an end. She would enjoy life. She experienced no difficulty in the execution of this project. Every one seemed anxious to assist her. Despite precautions, the fact that all was not well in the house of Juggernaut was public property; and the usual distorted rumours on the subject had set out upon their rounds, going from strength to strength in the process. Daphne was soon made conscious that people were sorry for her. Frivolous but warm-hearted women were openly sympathetic. Large, clumsy men indicated by various awkward and furtive acts of kindness that they too understood the situation, but were too tactful to betray the fact. Altogether Daphne was in a fair way to becoming spoiled. With all her faults no one had ever yet been able or inclined to call her anything but unaffected and natural; but about this time she began to assume the virtuous and long-suffering demeanour of a _femme incomprise_. She was only twenty-four, and few of us are able to refuse a martyr's crown when it is pressed upon us.