t Daisy," and then
Sabine felt she had been spiteful and tried to divert matters by asking
where Mr. Cloudwater was.

"Papa will be in in a moment. He has been dying for you to come back."
But the Princess had not done with Mr. Arranstoun yet. The Van der Horn
coterie had rung with his exploits on her return from Italy, and the
lurid picture had interested her deeply.

"I do wish I had been at Heronac, Sabine, I would love to have seen that
young man. Daisy's aunt told me he was wild about her niece, and at one
moment she thought everything was settled--it must have been after he
came back from Brittany--and then he went off to England--probably he
does not like to speak out until he is free."

Sabine felt that strange sensation she had experienced once before, of
heart sinking--and then, furious with herself, she mastered it and
became more determined than ever to carry out her intention of growing
accustomed to hearing of, and talking about Michael calmly.

"You are sure to meet him in England," she said; "he is a great friend
of Henry's."

But afterwards, when she was alone resting in her cosy room before
dinner, she deliberately pulled the blue despatch-box toward her and
looked at some of its contents, while tears gathered in her eyes, which
even the cynical thoughts which she was calling to her aid could not
quite suppress. Would things have been different if she had been able to
send Michael the letter which she had written to him in the September of
1907? The letter she had asked Mr. Parsons, who was again in London, to
have delivered to him, into his hand--and which came back to her in
Paris with the information from the old lawyer that Mr. Arranstoun had
left England for the wilds of China and Tibet, and might not get any
letters for more than a year. She remembered how that night she had
cried herself to sleep with misery, and with a growing regret at having
left Michael, and a pitiful longing just to be clasped once more in his
strong arms and comforted. Oh! the hateful wretched memories! To have
gone off at once to China like that proved his callousness and
indifference. Then, in spite of herself, her thoughts would review all
he had said to her on that morning in the garden. No--there had not been
one word of meaning, not even any suggestion of regret that she was
practically engaged to Henry. There had been some faint allusion to
people being fools--and brutes when young, but not that they would wish