"No. Well, now the thing is to find out what the party is to be. Write the truth, and say you'll go if I know who's to be there and allow you to go. Adelaide knows quite well she has lots of friends I shouldn't care for you to yacht with. And it's much better to be quite frank about it. If Susan Fleet and Max go, you can go." "I believe you are really the frankest person in London. And yet people love you--miracle-working mother!" Charmian turned the conversation to other subjects and seemed to forget all about _The Wanderer_. But when breakfast was over, and she was alone before her little Chippendale writing-table, she let herself go to her excitement. Although she loved, even adored her mother, she sometimes acted to her. To do so was natural to Charmian. It did not imply any diminution of love or any distrust. It was but an instinctive assertion of a not at all uncommon type of temperament. The coldness and the dreaminess were gone now, but her excitement was mingled with a great uncertainty. On receiving Mrs. Shiffney's note Charmian had almost instantly understood why she had been asked on the cruise. Her instinct had told her, for she had at that time known nothing of Heath's refusal. She had supposed that he had not yet been invited. Mrs. Shiffney had invited her not for herself, but as a means of getting hold of Heath. Charmian was positive of that. Months ago, in Max Elliot's music-room, the girl had divined the impression made by Heath on Mrs. Shiffney, had seen the restless curiosity awake in the older woman. She had even noticed the tightening of Mrs. Shiffney's lips when she, Charmian, had taken Heath away from the little group by the fire, with that "when you've quite done with my only mother," which had been a tiny slap given to Mrs. Shiffney. And she had been sure that Mrs. Shiffney meant to know Heath. She had a great opinion of Mrs. Shiffney's social cleverness and audacity. Most girls who were much in London society had. She did not really like Mrs. Shiffney, or want to be intimate with her, but she thoroughly believed in her flair, and that was why the note had stirred in Charmian excitement and uncertainty. If Mrs. Shiffney thought she saw something, surely it was there. She would not take shadow for substance. But might she not fire a shot in the dark on the chance of hitting something? "Why did she ask me instead of mother?" Charmian said to herself again and again. "If she had got mother to go Claude Heath would surely have gone. Why should he go because I go?" And then came the thought, "She thinks he may, perhaps thinks he will. Will he? Will he?"