From a long, awning-covered chair near the corner of the veranda Nanette’s mother arose--a gracefully pretty woman who solved the mystery of Nanette’s beauty for those who had met only her father. “Mumsy! Have you been sitting there all the time?” “All the time, dear--and I have heard every word! So don’t attempt to take one back!” Ensleigh, the well-groomed, became all attention. He became attentive from the crown of his perfectly brushed hair to the soles of his spruce white shoes. He placed a chair for Nanette’s pretty mother. He focussed his Zeiss glasses to enable her to view the German liner. She thanked him with a smile that was very like Nanette’s. “So you loathe poor Mr. Kirby?” she murmured, raising the glasses. “Hate him poisonously!” “And you love beer?” “Simply worship it, Mum! Lager is my vice!” Her mother lowered the glasses and fought with rising laughter, for Nanette was looking straight at her. Then: “You little devil!” she said. “I don’t believe a word of it! But your father simply won’t hear of you going on board a German ship. Don’t ask me why. You know him as well as anybody.” “I’ll ask him myself!” Nanette said, flashing blue eyes rebelliously. “Where is the funny old thing?” “Nan, dear!” “Oh, he’s a darling! But he _is_ funny! He’s never forgotten that I was once a baby.” “You are still a baby, Nan--a mere infant.” Nanette threw back her shapely bobbed head and laughed scornfully. Wild canaries were love-making in the palm grove below the balcony, and, being poetically inclined, I suppose, I thought that Nanette’s soft rippling laughter was music sweet as theirs. She turned swiftly. She had all her mother’s grace as well as the divine abandon of youth. With never another glance at any of us, she walked in through the open French window. Jack Kelton’s glance followed the slim, straight figure. Her mother looked up at Ensleigh. “Have you a daughter?” she asked. “No,” he replied. “I regret----” “Don’t regret,” she interrupted; but her smile belied the Chinese solecism to come: “Pray that you may never have a daughter!” “Really,” Jack began, in his youthful, diffident way, “I don’t think there’s any harm in----” He was interrupted. Nanette returned, dragging by the hand a very bored, gray-haired gentleman who carried a copy of the _Times_ that was ten days old. The gentleman, blinking through his glasses, was being forced out into the sunshine. “Now, Pop,” said Nanette firmly, “is there really any reason why I shouldn’t go with Mr. Ensleigh, Mr. Decies, and Mr. Kelton to see that German liner?” “Well, dear,” her father replied, in his laboured manner, “I am afraid you would be late for lunch, and----” His glance sought his wife’s. I distinctly detected a negative shake of the head from Nanette’s mother. “And,” he went on, “your mother thinks that this would be rude, as Mr. Kirby is expected.”