‘Oh, not yet,’ Lady Violet protested. ‘It is very early. Besides, I am enjoying myself.’

Mistral and the Prince stopped dancing, but they did not go back to the table where Emilie sat alone. Instead they went through the open doors into the garden. Sir Robert watched them go.

That child was getting herself talked about with the Prince, he thought, and enough was being said about her without that. Prince Nikolai was quite a pleasant young man from all accounts, but nevertheless out to enjoy life. He would doubtless flirt with Mistral and make love to her. She would not understand, she was too young.

Sir Robert felt his anger rising once again. He had not realised until this moment that he disliked the Prince as much as he disliked most of the foreigners he met in Monte Carlo. He thought of Mistral walking beside the Prince in the garden.

It would be cool and dark out there. But there would be just enough light for the Prince to perceive the loveliness of her little face, the velvet texture of her white skin, the curved sweetness of her lips. Perhaps he would lose his head out there in the darkness. Perhaps he would attempt to touch Mistral, to hold her in his arms, to force a kiss from her. She would be frightened and shocked. There would be no one to help her, no one to whom she could turn for aid.

With an almost superhuman effort Sir Robert forced himself to stay in his chair.

‘The Rajah is leaving,’ Lady Violet remarked casually.

Sir Robert saw the Rajah rise from his table. He was whispering to one of the men with him and there was an unpleasant smile on his face which showed all his white teeth.

‘I wonder why he is so pleased with himself,’ Sir Robert thought, but his mind went back to the Prince, wondering if all women would find him irresistibly good looking.

Outside in the garden Mistral told the Prince about the Rajah.

‘He said that he meant to have the pearls and it would be wiser for me to give them to him willingly,’ she said. ‘I am not really afraid, but there is something horrible about him, something uncanny.’

‘Have you told your aunt about this?’ the Prince asked, Mistral shook her head.

‘She would have been angry with me for listening to the Rajah in the first place,’ she replied, ‘but somehow it was difficult not to do as he asked without being rude.’