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you?’
    ‘If you want a forthright answer, it’s yes.’ Emma rested her hands on the rail, her eyes pensive. Two days had passed since that unforgettable scene with Paul Fanchette, but embarrassment and humiliation still filled her being whenever she thought about it, which quite naturally was often.
    She had determined to remove herself the following morning, but she could find no excuse to give her sister. She could scarcely reveal the truth, and so she decided to stay on—at least for a while—but as before, she vowed to keep out of Paul Fanchette’s way.
    Up till now it had been easy, since he was in his study for most of the day, but an hour or so ago he had come upon Emma and Louise and said casually, ‘I’d like you two to have dinner with me this evening,’ and he had moved on without affording either of them the chance to accept or reject the invitation.
    Louise was in high spirits, declaring that it was her especially whom he wanted for company.
    ‘He’s been better with me these past two days—but I expect you’ve noticed?’ she said, and Emma returned dryly, ‘I haven’t noticed, no. He’s been in his study most of the time as far as I could see.’
    ‘He’s spoken to me several times, and not once to find fault or treat me with that awful contempt I’ve become used to.’ Her lovely face was radiant; her big blue eyes shining. Emma sighed with impatience and wondered, not for the first time, what would be the outcome of all this.
    ‘I wish you wouldn’t attach so much importance tothis invitation,’ she had said with a sigh. ‘I’m very sure it means nothing.’
    ‘It must mean something,’ argued Louise, ‘for otherwise he’d not have invited me to dine with him—I mean, us,’ she corrected on noticing the lift of her sister’s eyebrows.
    Now, as she stood on the patio watching the little boy at play, Emma wondered what she was going to tell her mother when she wrote to her tomorrow. Mrs. Morris had begged her to write as soon as possible after her arrival and tell her what was wrong between Louise and her employer—for Mrs. Morris now regarded Paul Fanchette as her daughter’s employer.
    Emma had not been able to write, as she had no idea how to word a letter so as not to worry her mother even more than she was worried already.
    ‘So you do think I’m shirking my duty!’ Louise spoke into Emma’s musings, and she turned from the rail to regard her critically.
    ‘You know yourself you’re not giving Jeremy the care which his parents expect you to do. You must have been much more proficient when they were at home?’
    Louise merely shrugged her shoulders. It was plain her thoughts were elsewhere . . . on this evening and the excitement of dining with the man she had so foolishly fallen in love with.
    ‘I didn’t really know Paul then,’ she submitted at last and then asked Emma if she were contemplating doing any sight-seeing while she was in Mauritius.
    ‘I’d hoped to do some, yes, but as you are working I’ll have to go on my own, which I’m not wildly excited about. . . .’ She tailed off as Paul Fanchettecame striding onto the lawn and glanced around, his face stern and set.
    ‘He’s looking for me,’ from Louise self-deprecatingly. ‘I ought to be with Jeremy.’
    ‘I’d go if I were you,’ recommended Emma. ‘He doesn’t appear to be in the best of moods.’
    Louise, following her advice, went off and joined the little boy, and Paul went back into the house.
    Emma’s mood became pensive; she had recently admitted that it could have been extremely difficult for Louise not to fall in love with a man so attractive as Paul Fanchette, simply because she had always been far more impressionable than Emma; she was immature, easily influenced by people and by circumstances.
    Pity welled up as Emma watched Louise moving with steps far more light and eager than before she received the invitation to dinner. Optimism seemed to ooze from her; she laughed