"Really you possess an insatiable thirst for information regarding my probable guests, precious child," she exclaimed. "All--of course not. I have only portrayed the heads of tribes as yet for your delectation. We shall number many others--male and female--of the usual self-expatriated British rank and file.--Derelicts mostly." Lightly and coldly, Henrietta laughed. "Like, for example, the General and myself. Wanderers possessed of a singularly barren species of freedom, without ties, without any sheet-anchor of family or of profession to embarrass our movements, without call to live in one place rather than another. All along this sun-blessed Riviera you will find them swarming, thick as flies, displaying the trumpery spites and rivalries through which, as I started by pointing out to you, they can alone maintain a degree of individuality and persuade themselves and others they still are actually alive." Shocked at this sudden bitterness, touched to the quick by generous pity, regardless of possible onlookers--here in the village street, where the hoof-beats of the trotting horses echoed loud from the house-walls on either side--Damaris put her arms round Henrietta Frayling, clasping, kissing her. "Ah! don't, Henrietta," she cried. "Don't dare to say such ugly, lying things about your dear self. They aren't true. They're absurdly, scandalously untrue.--You who are so brilliant, so greatly admired, who have everyone at your feet! You who are so kind too,--think of all the pleasure you have given me to-day, for instance--and then think how beautifully good you've been, and all the time are being, to poor Mr. Wace"-- Whether Mrs. Frayling's surprising lapse into sincerity and bald self-criticism were intentional, calculated, or not, she was undoubtedly quick to see and profit by the opening which Damaris' concluding words afforded her. "How sweet you are, darling child! How very dear of you to scold me thus!" she murmured, gently disengaging herself and preening her feathers, somewhat disarranged by the said darling child's impetuous onset. "I know it is wrong to grumble. Yet sometimes--as one grows older--one gets a dreadful sense that the delights of life are past; and that perhaps one has been overscrupulous, over-timid and so missed the best.--That is one reason why I find it so infinitely pleasing to have you with me--yet pathetic too perhaps.--Why? Well, I don't know that I am quite at liberty to explain exactly why." Henrietta smiled at her long, wistfully and oh! so sagely.