With a brave effort Dulcie flung away disappointment. After her sleep and dinner Miss Martin was well enough to come and lie out on deck, wrapped up in rugs, and enjoy the sunshine; and, hearing of a party of American ladies going for an hour or two ashore in the afternoon, she sent Dulcie off with them; so that, if she did not see what others did, at least she wandered up the narrow, busy main street of the town, saw the jostling crowds of semi-Moorish and mixed European nationality; drove out to Catalan Bay and Europa Point, and sipped delicious chocolate in a delightfully Moorish-looking restaurant before getting back to the ship.
"We have had a perfectly charming afternoon," she told Miss Martin when she got back. "We had not time or energy for the fortifications; but I don't think I mind that. That great lion rock is enough for me. I have seen Gib'; and made a few little sketches. I am quite, quite happy and content."
II.
"How perfectly exquisite!" exclaimed Dulcie.
The great vessel was lying at her anchorage in the beautiful harbour of Malaga. The smooth water lay almost without a ripple, dreaming beneath the misty glories of the spring sunrise, the delicate opals melting into the deeper green and blue of the ocean away towards the horizon, but nearer at hand so tender and pearly in tint that Dulcie held her breath to watch; and seemed as though she would never move again.
"A penny for your thoughts, Miss Grey!"
Dulcie wheeled round with a great start, the colour flushing her face from brow to chin.
"Mr. Carlyon!" she almost gasped.