Before 'Bias could comment on this, a footstep—light, yet audible between the tinkling notes of the musical box—drew the gaze of the pair to a small window on the right, outside of which lay the gravelled approach to their bower.
"May I come in?" asked a voice—a woman's—with a pretty hesitation in its note: and Mrs Bosenna stood in the doorway.
"Please keep your seats," she entreated as both arose awkwardly. She added with a mirthful little laugh, "I heard the musical box playing away, and so I took French leave. Now, don't tell me that I'm an intruder! It is only for a few minutes; and—strictly speaking, you know—the lease says I may enter at any reasonable time. Is this a reasonable time?"
They assured her, but still awkwardly, that she was welcome at any time.
Captain Cai found her a chair.
"So this," she said, looking around, "is where you sit together and talk disparagingly of our sex. At least, that's what Dinah assures me, though I don't see how she can possibly know."
"Ma'am!" said Cai, "we were talkin', this very moment, o' fireworks: nothing more an' nothing less."
"Well, and you couldn't have been talking of anything more to the point," said Mrs Bosenna; "for, as it happens, it's fireworks that brought me here."
'Bias looked vaguely skyward, while "You don't tell me, ma'am, those fellows are making trouble down in the town?" cried Cai.
"Eh? I don't understand. . . . Oh, no," she laughed when he explained his alarm, "I am afraid my errand is much more selfish. You see, I positively dote on fireworks."
She paused.