"She's called by both names," said Mr. Albertson. "This girl answers her description very good."
Wood nodded. Had he in fact been getting a daily letter all these weeks from Golden Moll? The idea intrigued him not a little.
"I think I'll go and have a talk with her," he said.
"By all means, by all means," said Mr. Albertson. "We've just been waiting for you, you know—just to see how she'll act when confronted with you. She hasn't a notion, you know, that you've left Mexico. But," he went on in his deep rich voice, "I'd speak her fair if I was you. Kindness, Mr. Wood, never does any harm. What are we put in this world for except to help each other—women especially? If I was you I'd say, 'Look, girlie, we want to help you. We have you dead to rights, and you'd better come across. Come across, girlie,' I'd say, 'and make it easy for everyone.'" Mr. Albertson had already recommended this speech to Mrs. Conway without success, and now it seemed to him that Mr. Wood was not really going to make it.
"Ay, yes," Anthony said rather noncommittally.
He turned from Mr. Albertson quietly, as is some people's manner when they are doing something important and, crossing the piazza, stood a moment at the top of the steps.
The sun had just set behind his right shoulder, and to those who love the sea the bare flat scene had at this moment an extraordinary beauty. All round the circle of the horizon there was a grayish lilac color. The sea was blue and gray, the beach was pink, with gray shadows under the dunes—strange blending colors that come with no other light. The storm was over, and the sea, though not smooth, was heaving with a slow, regular swell. The beach, even to the dunes, was strewn still with seaweed and lumber and all the flotsam and jetsam of a high tide.
Immediately in front of Anthony was a large rose-colored parasol, the owner of which had evidently forgotten to put it down, although for an hour now it could have been of not the slightest use. Nothing appeared beneath it but the tip of a white suède slipper.
Anthony stood and looked, a smile hovering at the corners of his mouth. There she was—possibly the Golden Moll of Albertson's suspicions, certainly the writer of interesting letters, the reformer of his niece's manners, the stealer of the pearls.
Then he heard Antonia's voice behind him, calling his name. Ordinarily she would have stolen up behind him and clung round his neck with her feet off the ground; but now she evidently wanted him to get the full effect of her changed appearance, for she stood ten feet off and spoke to him. Oddly enough, she was wearing the very clothes which Pearl had described—the pink linen, the hat with the pink rose, the gray silk stockings and gray suède pumps. Nothing, Anthony thought, could have been more accurate. The child was very beautiful, just as he had hoped—hardly dared to hope—to see her.