Henrietta stood turning the folded newspaper about and idly scanning the head-lines, while the wind, entering by the open casements at the end of the corridor, lifted and fluttered the light blue gauze scarf she wore round her shoulders over her white frilled morning gown. "He didn't tell me," the large, soft, very hot young man said. "You may call it imagination, Cousin Henrietta; but I can't. I am positive his manner was intentional. He meant to snub me, by intimating of how slight account I am in his estimation. It was exceedingly galling. I do not want to employ a vulgar expression--but he looked down his nose at me as if I was beneath contempt. You know that insolent, arrogant way of his?" "Oh, la-la!" Henrietta cried. "Don't be so childish!"--Though she did in point of fact know the said way perfectly well and admired it. Once upon a time hadn't Sir Charles, indeed, rather superbly practised it in her--Henrietta's--defence? She sighed; while her temper took a nasty turn towards her yellow-faced, apologetic little General, waiting patiently for sight of the English newspapers, under the veil of mosquito netting in his little bed. Even in his roaring forties--had his forties ever roared though?--she doubted it--not to save his life could he ever have looked down his nose at an offending fellow-man like that.--Ah! Charles Verity--Charles Verity!--Her heart misgave her that she had been too precipitate in this third marriage. If she had waited?-- "Of course, with my wretchedly short sight, I may have been mistaken," Wace continued, pointedly ignoring her interruption, "but I am almost convinced I recognized Colonel Carteret and Miss Verity--Damaris--through the open door, on the other side of the _salle d'attente,_ in the crowd on the platform about to take their places in the train from Cannes, which had just come in." Henrietta ceased to scan the head-lines or deplore her matrimonial precipitation. "Carteret and Damaris alone and together?" she exclaimed with raised eyebrows. "Yes, and it occurred to me that I there touched upon the explanation, in part at least, of Sir Charles Verity's offensive manner. He had been to see them off and was, for some reason, unwilling that we--you and I, cousin Henrietta--should know of their journey."