First, however, she sat down and wrote a letter to her aunt in England. Without telling a lie she deliberately gave the impression that Jimmy was still with her. Poor Aunt Hilda was always beset by endless, although nameless, fears as to what might happen in ‘foreign parts’.

Her correspondence finished, Skye went on deck and, giving a man on the quay ten pesos, told him to take the letter to the Post Office. He hurried off obediently, all smiles at earning so much money for so little effort.

Skye gave a sigh of relief. Her last duty was done! Now she could begin to enjoy herself.

It was still early when she left the yacht. She was wearing a dress of thin white linen and she carried a sunshade to keep the sun from her bare head. From the moment she stepped ashore people stopped to stare at her as she went by.

The men, winking and whistling, made pointed remarks to each other about her beauty. Skye ignored them and was not in the least embarrassed.

She was not interested in the attention she created, especially where men were concerned, for she had spoken the truth to Jimmy when she told him that she hated men.

He had not really believed her, but there were young men both in America and England who could have told him things that would have surprised him.

“You say I am unkind,” Skye said once to a young Guards Officer whom she had refused to marry. “Is it my fault that you fall in love with me? No one could say that I encouraged you.”

“No, that is true but don’t you understand that I cannot help loving you, you are so beautiful? You make any man who sees you want you and yet – ”

He stopped and Skye looked at him with a little smile on her lips.

“And yet?” she prompted.

“You are hard,” he said finally. “There is something unfeminine about you.”

“You say that simply because I don’t throw myself into your arms. As I have told you, I don’t want to marry you or anyone else.”

“Let me try to teach you to love me,” the young man pleaded.

“Why waste time when I know it’s impossible for you to succeed?” Skye asked.

“But I love you,” he said miserably. “Let me kiss you, Skye, if only to say goodbye.”

She looked at him scornfully.

“I hate being kissed,” she answered, “and I can imagine nothing I should dislike more than for you to touch me.”

She saw the expression on his face as she spoke and knew that she was being brutal and then asked herself what else she could do. She despised him and all the other men who desired her because she was pretty, because she was rich and not because they knew anything about her character or her real self.