She dried the tear-stained little face with a big handkerchief, and rocked her child to the rhythm of the music which drifted from the hall, borne by the night breeze, through the open window, until the sobs had ceased.
And in the ball-room the Thistleton family nodded their heads sagely to the rhythm of the same music.
"I am sure she didn't see Mr. Kelham and Sybil, Mamma," Ellen was saying. "She was having tea when we went to find her, and looked quite all right."
"I was thankful when I saw her," broke in Berenice, patting a thick envelope with the Edinburgh post-mark. "On the Nile, together, it really did not seem comme il faut at all, and wherever Mrs. Sidmouth was, she might have countenanced the—er—the courtship by her presence on deck."
"Well, all's well that ends well," said Mamma placidly, as she secretly returned thanks that her daughters were not as others.
* * * * * *
But later, far into the night, Damaris stood at her window, with her arms round the bulldog's neck.
"You're the only one who really loves me, Well-Well. Everybody else run away and leaves me. I'm—I'm, so unhappy!"
Tears stood in the big eyes as she flung out her arms and cried in a sudden passionate intensity, "Marraine! Marraine! I want you—I want you! If you loved me, you would come to me, because I want you so!"