"Contact with the world has made me what I am, my dear Carmela."
"Well," I said, "to be quite candid, I don't think that the real cause why so many women nowadays remain single is to be found in the theories we've been airing to one another. The fact is, after all, that we're only a bundle of nerves and emotions, and once our affections are involved we are capable of any heroism."
"You may be one of those, my dear," was her rather grave response. "I'm afraid, however, that I am not."
I did not pursue the subject further. She was kind and sympathetic in all else, save where my love was concerned. My affection for Ernest was to her merely an amusing incident. She seemed unable to realise how terribly serious I was, or what a crushing blow had fallen upon me when he had turned and forsaken me.
Gerald called at eleven, for he had arranged to accompany us to Beaulieu.
"Miss Rosselli," he cried, as he greeted me, "you're a brick—that you are!"
"A brick!" I echoed. "Why?"
"Why, you've worked an absolute miracle with the guv'nor. Nobody else could persuade him to set foot on the Vispera except to return to England, yet you've induced him to arrange for a cruise up the Mediterranean."
Ulrica glanced at me with a confident air. I knew the thought which rose in her mind.
"Are you glad?" I asked him.