seat with her back to the room, and I
understood her reason even before she told me.

"I think," she said, "that to-night it would be pleasant to forget
that there is any one here who disturbs me. I think it would be
pleasant to remember only that this great holiday of mine, which I
have looked forward to so long, has really begun."

"You have looked forward to coming to London so much?" I asked.

"Yes!" she answered. "I have lived a very quiet life, Capitaine
Rotherby. After the Sisters had finished with me--and I stayed at the
school longer than any of the others--I went straight to the house of
a friend of my uncle's, where I had only a _dame de compagnie_.
My uncle--he was so long coming, and the life was very dull. But
always he wrote to me, 'Some day I will take you to London!' Even
when we were in Paris together he would tell me that."

"Tell me," I asked, "what is your uncle's Christian name?"

"I have three uncles," she said, after a moment's
hesitation,--"Maurice, Ferdinand, and Nicholas. Nicholas lives all the
time in South America. Maurice and Ferdinand are often in Paris."

"And the uncle with whom you are now?" I asked.

I seemed to have been unfortunate in my choice of a conversation. Her
eyes had grown larger. The quivering of her lips was almost pitiful.

"I am a clumsy ass!" I interrupted quickly. "I am asking you questions
which you do not wish to answer. A little later on, perhaps, you will
tell me everything of your own accord. But to-night I shall ask you
nothing. We will remember only that the holiday has begun."

She drew a little sigh of relief.

"You are so kind," she murmured, "so very kind. Indeed I do not want
to think of these things, which I do not understand, and which only
puzzle me all the time. We will let them alone, is it not so? We will
let them alone and talk about foolish things. Or you shall tell me
about London, and the country--tell me what we will do. Indeed, I may
go down to your home in Norfolk."

"I think you will like it there," I said. "It is too stuffy for London
these months. My brother's house is not far from the sea. There is a
great park which stretches down to some marshes, and beyond that the
sands."

"Can one bathe?" she asked breathlessly.

"Of course," I answered. "There is a private beach, and when we have
people in the house at this time of the year we always have the
motor-car ready to take them down and back. That is for those who
bathe early