“Very unreasonable, mademoiselle,” I said after a pause.
“Oh, men are always like that. They all seem to think that because a girl amuses herself and dances once or twice with them, they have made a conquest.”
“A man is of course unreasonable to believe in a woman.”
“What a delightfully cynical platitude. Isn’t the sea getting up quickly? Poor mother! I am afraid you won’t tempt her on the yacht again.” Again she laughed, and added: “And that’s a nuisance, for I love the sea.”
I turned unexpectedly and caught a look in her eyes as they were bent on me, which she had not meant me to see. And then I thought I understood.
“I thought that was it,” I said quietly. I myself could smile now.
“What was what, Mr. Donnington?” she asked as a sort of challenge; adding, with an attempt to resume her former expression of reckless frivolity: “that sounds like a conundrum, doesn’t it? And they are such stupid things.”
“I believe I have the answer to the bigger conundrum.”
“There’s the grave Englishman again,” she jested, with a toss of the head.
“Yes. ‘Miralda’s Englishman,’” I answered, holding her eyes with mine and speaking slowly and deliberately.