Her conduct has been exemplary. I have allowed her to make the
acquaintance of two or three young fellows, her partners at the
Casino dances, and she walks up and down the terrace with them
before meals. I have forbidden her, under penalty of immediate
return to London and of my eternal displeasure, to mention the
harem at Alexandretta. Young fellows are gifted with a genius
for misapprehension. She is an ordinary young English lady, an
orphan (which is true), and I am her guardian. Of course she
looks at them with imploring eyes, and pulls them by the sleeve,
and handles the lappels of their coats, and admits them to terms
of the frankest intimacy; but I can no more change these
characteristics than I can alter the shape of her body. She is
the born coquette. Her delighted conception of herself is that
she is the object of every man's admiration. I noticed her this
morning playing a tune with her fingers on the old bathing-man's
arm, as he was preparing to take her into the water, and I saw
his mahogany face soften.
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