"My dear Jasmine, how pale you are!" she exclaimed, and bade her ring the bell for a glass of water.
Jasmine, with a reproach for her treacherous Southern heart, tried to appear composed.
"No, really please, Aunt May," she murmured.
"But I insist, Jasmine. If you won't look after yourself, I must look after you. Ring the bell at once, there's a good girl, and you shall have a glass of water."
Jasmine, to conceal her emotion, accepted the excuse that her aunt offered, and did as she had been told.
"A glass of water for my niece, please, Frank," said Lady Grant to the waiter, and she managed to convey in the tone of her command that a glass of water for her niece would be different somehow from ordinary water. Perhaps it was, for when Frank brought it, all the people round looked up to watch Jasmine drinking it; and everyone who has drunk water in similar circumstances will know that it does then have a peculiar taste of its own, rather like that positive nothingness which is the flavour of permanganate of potash and peroxide of hydrogen.
Soon after this Pamela came out on the verandah, and she, like her sister, had to be reassured of the sanctity of her lunch.
"But at least," Jasmine thought, "he'll be able to see me, and perhaps when he sees me he'll ask to be introduced to Aunt May."
At this moment Frank appeared again and asked Lady Grant in an awe-struck whisper if she had not ordered cold chicken.
"The head steward asks me to say, my lady, that unfortunately there is no more cold chicken left."
"Dear me," Lady Grant exclaimed, "what a disappointment! Well, perhaps Jasmine and I had better go home to lunch after all."
Neither Lettice nor Pamela made any attempt to detain her; and Jasmine decided to forget all about Mr. Vibart, and all about everything indeed that could ever for one moment lighten her future.
"I beg pardon, my lady, only the head steward requested me to inform your ladyship that there is cold duck."
"Then in that case I think we may as well stay," said her ladyship.
"The ducks are very tough," Lettice snapped.
"I beg pardon, Miss Grant," Frank respectfully argued, "the head steward is now procuring our ducks for the club from another farm. Will you take apple sauce, my lady?"