"No one," he answered. "And yet there is something in your blood which calls for the truth, which hates the shams, which knows real beauty. Why don't you try and cultivate it? In your heart you know where the true things lie. Consider! Every one with great wealth can make or mar many lives. You enter the world almost as a divinity. Your wealth is reckoned as a quality. What you do will be right. What you condemn will be wrong. It is a very important thing for others as well as yourself, that you should see a clear way through life." A moment's intense dejection seized upon her. The tears stood in her eyes as she looked away from him. "Who is there to show it me?" she asked. "Who is there to help me find it?" "Not those friends whom you have left to play bridge in a room with drawn curtains at this hour of the day," he answered. "Not your stepmother, or any of her sort. Try and realize this. Even the weakest of us is not dependent upon others for support. There is only one sure guide. Trust yourself. Be faithful to the best part of yourself. You know what is good and what is ugly. Don't be coerced, don't be led into the morass." She looked at him and laughed gaily. Her mood had changed once more with chameleon-like swiftness. "It is all very well for you," she declared. "You are six foot four, and you look as though you could hew your way through life with a cudgel. One could fancy you a Don Quixote amongst the shams, knocking them over like ninepins, and moving aside neither to the right nor to the left. But what is a poor weak girl to do? She wants some one, Mr. Andrew, to wield the cudgel for her." It was several seconds before he turned his head. Then he found that, although her lips were laughing, her eyes were longing and serious. She sprang suddenly to her feet and leaned towards him. "This is the most delightful nonsense," she whispered. "Please!" She was in his arms for a moment, her lips had clung to his. Then she was away, flying along the sands at a pace which seemed to him miraculous, swinging her hat in her hands, and humming the maddening refrain of some French song, which it seemed to him was always upon her lips, and which had haunted him for days. He hesitated, uncertain whether to follow, ashamed of himself, ashamed of the passion which was burning in his blood. And while he hesitated she passed out of sight, turning only once to wave her hand as she crossed the line of grass-grown hillocks which shut him out from her view. CHAPTER XVI "To-morrow," the Princess said softly, "we shall have been here a fortnight." Cecil de la Borne came and sat by her side upon the sofa. "I am afraid," he said, "that leaving out everything else, you have been terribly bored."