Damaris sought to stifle remembrance of this alluring fact, as soon as it occurred to her. She must not dally with it--no she mustn't. To in anywise encourage or dwell on it, was weak and unworthy, she having accepted the claims of clearly apprehended duty. She could not go back on her decision, her choice, since, in face of the everlasting hills, she had pledged herself.
So she let her eyes no longer rest on the high-road, but looked out to sea--where, as tormenting chance would have it, the black hull of a big cargo boat, steaming slowly westward, cut into the vast expanse of blue, long pennons of rusty grey smoke trailing away from its twin rusty-red painted funnels.
Hard-pressed, the girl turned to her companion, asking abruptly, inconsequently--"Is that every one whom you expect on Thursday, Henrietta?"
For some seconds Mrs. Frayling regarded her with a curious lack of intelligent interest or comprehension. Her thoughts, also, had run forward into the gold of the approaching sunset; and she had some difficulty in overtaking, or restraining them, although they went no further than the Grand Hotel; and--so to speak--sat down there all of a piece, on a buff-coloured iron chair, which commanded an uninterrupted view of four gentlemen standing talking before the front door.
"On Thursday?" she repeated--"Why Thursday?"--and her usually skilful hands fumbled with the fastening of her sable cape. Their helpless ineffectual movements served to bring her to her senses, bring her to herself.
"Really you possess an insatiable thirst for information regarding my probable guests, precious child," she exclaimed. "All--of course not. I have only portrayed the heads of tribes as yet for your delectation. We shall number many others--male and female--of the usual self-expatriated British rank and file.--Derelicts mostly."
"Like, for example, the General and myself. Wanderers possessed of a singularly barren species of freedom, without ties, without any sheet-anchor of family or of profession to embarrass our movements, without call to live in one place rather than another. All along this sun-blessed Riviera you will find them swarming, thick as flies, displaying the trumpery spites and rivalries through which, as I started by pointing out to you, they can alone maintain a degree of individuality and persuade themselves and others they still are actually alive."