"Tellier prosecutes his loves," he murmured, smiling grimly to himself, and turned back toward the hotel. There he stopped, struck by a sudden thought. "Julie," he repeated. "Julie--where have I heard that name recently? Oh, I remember--Julie is our maid at the hotel. I wonder--" He went back abruptly to the parapet and looked over, but Tellier and his companion had disappeared. CHAPTER X An Introduction and a Promenade Warm and fair dawned the morning; and having, at its leisure, duly arisen, bathed and breakfasted, the unemployed population of Weet-sur-Mer, male and female, sallied forth to throng the beach and Digue, to inhale the fresh air, to shake off so far as possible the effects of the evening's dissipations, and to exchange such toadstool growths of gossip as had sprung up over night. To join this parade there presently came Lord Vernon, reclining languidly in his invalid chair, and muffled in many rugs; but his eyes were eagerly alert and he gazed with evident anticipation down the long promenade of the Digue. He was attended by Blake, Collins, and Sir John, all of them determined, no doubt, to prevent a second contretemps. But Sir John presently descried a learned fellow-Aesculapian and stopped for a chat with him; while Blake soon afterward succumbed to the glance and smile of a red-cheeked English beauty. Collins, however, stuck grimly to his post, being above--or below--such human weaknesses. "There they are!" cried Vernon, suddenly, with brightening eyes. "Who?" asked Collins, following his gaze. "Oh, the Rush ford girls. I suppose it will be polite to show our gratitude. I think we owe them a vote of thinks, don't you?" "I certainly do," agreed Vernon, straightening himself in his chair with a vigour which had nothing of the invalid about it. "Will you introduce me?" "If I can snare them without being too intrusive," assented Collins, who, since the success of his stratagem of the afternoon before, had been in an unusually complaisant mood. But fate willed that they should be snared without any effort on his part whatever, for just then a porter came by with a truck piled high with luggage, and it and the invalid chair combined to form an impasse from which there was no escaping. Not that either of the young ladies displayed any very evident anxiety to escape. "Good-morning," said Collins, in his best manner. "My lord," he continued, turning to his companion, "these are the Misses Rushford, to whom we owe so much. I hope I may introduce Lord Vernon to you," he added. Both of them were laughing as they took, in turn, the hand which Vernon rather eagerly held out. "I'm awfully glad to meet you," he said, looking from one to the other and trying to decide which was the prettier. "I feel that we _do_ owe you a great deal. When Collins came back yesterday afternoon and told me what he'd had the impudence to ask you, I was--I was--"