Mr. Fogo, peering through the bushes as one fascinated, saw an extremely beautiful woman confronting an extremely pale youth, and fancied also that he saw a curious flash of contempt pass over the woman's features as she answered—
"Really unless you kill the Admiral next time he makes a pun, I do not know that just now I need such a service. By to-morrow, though, or the next day, I may think of one. Until then"—she held out her hand—"wait patiently, and be kind to Sophia."
Mr. Moggridge started as though stung by a snake; but, recollecting himself, imprinted a kiss upon the proffered fingers. Again Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys laughed with unaffected mirth, and again the hidden witness saw that curious gleam of scorn—only now, as the young man bent his head, it was not dissembled.
They were gone. Mr. Fogo sank back against the bushes, drew a long breath, and passed his hand nervously over his eyes; but though the scene had passed as a dream, the laugh still rang in his ears.
"It is a judgment on me!" muttered the poor man—"a judgment! They are all alike."
Curiously enough, his next reflection appeared to contradict this view of the sex.
"An extraordinary woman! But every fresh person I meet in this place is more eccentric than the last. Let me see," he continued, checking off the list on his fingers; "there's Caleb, and that astounding Admiral, and the Twins, and Tamsin—"
Mr. Fogo stared very hard at the water for some seconds.
"And Tamsin," he repeated slowly. "Hullo! my feet seem to be in the water—and, bless my soul! what has become of the boat?"
He might well ask. The tide had been steadily rising as he crouched under the banks, and was now lapping his boots. Worse than this, it had floated off the boat, which he had carelessly forgotten to secure, and drifted it up the river, at first under cover of the trees, afterwards more ostentatiously into mid-channel.