"I know I did. I was wrong. Even a wary old bird like me can make a mistake. Mrs. Vavasour has just warned my wife about her. It's no good arguing, Georgie, my boy. Nowadays you can't draw the line too rigidly. Things permissible in Paris or Nice won't pass muster here. I'm sorry, Georgie. She's a high stepper and devilish taking, I admit. Writes for some ha'penny rag--er--for some cheap society paper, I hear. Why, dash it all, she will be lampooning us in it before we know where we are. Just you go and tell your mother you'll behave better in future. Excellent woman, Mrs. Vavasour. She never makes a mistake. Gad! don't you remember how she spotted that waiter from the Ritz who gulled the lot of us at the Jetee last winter? Took him for the French marquis he said he was, every one of us, women and all, till Mrs. V. fixed her eye on him and said, 'Gustave!' Damme! how he curled up!" George was still obdurate. A masquerading waiter differed from Helen in many essentials. "He was a Frenchman, an' they're mostly rotters. This girl is English, General, an' I shall look a proper sort of an ass if I freeze up suddenly after what I've said to her." "Not for the first time, my boy, and mebbe not for the last." Then, in view of the younger man's obvious defiance, the General's white mustache bristled. "Of course, you can please yourself," he growled: "but neither Mrs. Wragg nor my daughters will tolerate your acquaintance with that person!" "Oh, all right, General," came the irritated answer. "Between you an' the mater I've got to come to heel; but it's a beastly shame, I say, an' you're all makin' a jolly big mistake." Georgie's intelligence might be superficial; but he knew a lady when he met one, and Helen had attracted him powerfully. He was thanking his stars for the good fortune that numbered him among the earliest of her acquaintances in the hotel, and it was too bad that the barring edict should have been issued against her so unexpectedly. But he was not of a fighting breed, and he quailed before the threat of Mrs. Wragg's displeasure. Helen, after a delightful ramble past the chateau and along the picturesque turns and twists of the Colline des Artistes, returned in time for tea, which was served on the veranda, the common rendezvous of the hotel during daylight. No one spoke to her. She went out again, and walked by the lake till the shadows fell and the mountains glittered in purple and gold. She dressed herself in a simple white evening frock, dined in solitary state, and ventured into the ball room after dinner.