Caroline never took the advice seriously, although looking at her mother’s still perfect complexion, perhaps she should. In a belated attack of conscience, she pulled the brim of the new hat a little further over her forehead. As she emerged onto the front to turn towards the office, a whiff of the sea caught her nostrils. Since the Leas was unusually free of tramping columns of khaki, it was easy to imagine that old-fashioned bathing machines still lined the town beach, one end of which was allotted to gentlemen, the other to lady bathers; and that beyond that, safe from disapproving eyes, white tents adorned another beach on which both male and female daringly consorted in decorous costumes. If she were to stroll up to the Metropole, would Madame de Pompadour, as Caroline called the doyenne of Folkestone society, be presiding over tea and delicate petits fours, or would the familiar sea of khaki meet her eyes? In fact Caroline was now part of the khaki brigade.
