"My dear, what gross flattery!" Violet laughed again, her eyes upon the glittering sea. "Immortal youth! How divine it sounds! Allegro, I should hate to be old." She stretched out her arms to the sky-line. "I want to keep young for ever," she said. "Do you really think I shall? I sometimes think—" she paused.
"What?" said Olga.
She turned round to her with a little gesture of confidence. "I sometimes have a feeling, Allegro, that I must be getting old or dull or plain already. Men don't make love to me so much as they did."
"My dear, what nonsense!" exclaimed Olga, with burning cheeks.
"No, listen! It's true." There was almost a sound of tears in the deep voice. "It's quite true, Allegro. I am not so attractive as I was. I feel it. I know it. Something is lost. I don't know what it is. It went from me that night—you remember!—and it hasn't returned. I thought it was my soul at first. I still sometimes wonder." She laid a hand that quivered and clung upon Olga's arm. "And the dreadful part of it is, Allegro, that Max knows. He looks at me with the most deadly knowledge in his eyes—such wicked eyes they are, all green and piercing, and so cruel—so cruel."
A great shiver went through her, and then all in a moment—before Olga could utter a word—her mood had changed. She leaped suddenly to her feet, all sparkling animation and excitement.
"See! There is a yacht just come round the headland! How close it is!
Oh, Allegro, wouldn't you love to go on the water this stifling day?"
"An easy wish to gratify!" observed a voice close to them.
Olga turned with a violent start. Violet merely glanced over her shoulder and smiled. Hunt-Goring, stepping lightly in canvas shoes, came airily forward over the sand, and bowed low.
"I am the deus ex machina," he said. "The yacht is mine—and entirely at your service."