The Earl sighed again.
"The need for self-expression comes strongly upon the artist at a time like this," he said. "It is not for me to say that I have genius—"
"It is for me to say it, dear," said his wife.
"Well, well, perhaps in my own line. And at the full height of one's powers to be baulked by the morbidity, for I can call it nothing else, of a Percy Podby! Gertie," he went on dreamily, "I wish I could make you understand something of the fascination which an artist finds in his medium. To be lying here, at the top of the world, with the lazy sea crawling beneath us so many feet below—"
"Look," said the Countess suddenly. She pointed to the beach.
The Earl rose, stretched his head over the edge and gazed down.
"Percy," he said.
"Yes. Almost exactly beneath us."
"If anything fell upon him from here," said the Earl thoughtfully, "it is quite possible that—"
Suddenly the fascination whereof he had spoken to her came irresistibly home to the Countess.