Through dinner she was recklessly merry, witty in her flashing way; brilliantly, a little haggardly, pretty. The patches of pink were more pronounced on her cheeks, her powder thicker. Then, driving home in the cool, she remembered Sybil Chauntsey. Here was another woman about to make a mistake, to realize too late, as she had done, that money cannot repay peace of mind. Deep, too, in Esmé's mind, was a horror of sinning. She was instinctively pure herself; her ideas set deeply in a bed of conventionality. A girl of Sybil's type would suffer all her life if she once slipped, perhaps afterwards grow completely reckless, look on her one sin as so deadly that a host of others could matter little, and might drown thought. Esmé forgot Sybil until Sunday morning. Angy Beerhaven had proved himself in earnest, had almost insisted on a trip in his new car. "Bring anyone--your husband and a friend," he said. Esmé had agreed heartily. There was Estelle; she would like the drive. As the huge cream-coloured Daimler hummed softly at her door, Angy asked where they would go to. "The sea would be lovely to-day," he said. "Or there are the Downs or the Forest." "The sea!" Esmé shot out swiftly. "The sea!" she said. "Then Brighton. It's a nice run; there are decent hotels. One only gets cold beef and cutlets in heaps of places." "Brighton let it be," she said carelessly. The Daimler seemed a live monster purring as she flew along the smooth roads, laughing at her hills, answering sweetly to her brakes, swinging her great length contemptuously past weaker sisters. The salt kiss of the sea was on their faces as they dipped into Brighton. "We'll run out again afterwards," Angy said; "get a good blow." Esmé had been a merry companion on the way down. Strolling on the front, Esmé started suddenly. Sybil might be here; she remembered the conversation now. In the huge place it would be almost impossible to find her. Jimmie would not come to the best-known hotels. But if she could--it would be worth some trouble. Esmé's fit of boredom vanished. She was full of plans. They would run off for a long run, come back to tea, dine again in Brighton and go home in the cool. "They'll be quite happy anywhere," she said, nodding towards Estelle and Bertie. "We can go off by ourselves." Angy's hopes grew deeper. His fatuously ardent glances were more frequent. He whispered eager nonsense to Esmé, hinted at happy future drives and meetings, of lending her the car altogether if she liked. To have a sixty Daimler at one's disposal would be convenient, but as it would generally include Angy Beerhaven as chauffeur, Esmé shrugged her shoulders. A taxi suited her better, though she did not say so. After tea she grew restless; wanted to see other hotels, to inspect Brighton. The Metropole was too crowded. "Come with me," she said to Angy; "we'll prospect, and telephone here if we find some nest which suits me." A cabman gave her information.